


Under the Skin, Over the Heart

by little_abyss, MermAight



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Tattoos, Angst and Feels, Arguing, Canon-Typical Violence, Declarations Of Love, Developing Relationship, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Modern Thedas, Relationship(s), Separations, Spoilers, Tattoos, To Be Continued, Travel, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-16
Packaged: 2018-04-03 03:00:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 37,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4084087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_abyss/pseuds/little_abyss, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MermAight/pseuds/MermAight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bull has been thinking of a new tattoo for some time.  It's a big piece, and of something that's really important to him, so only the right artist will do.  Luckily, Dorian might just be that artist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Modern tattooist Dorian waiting for someone](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/119983) by Merm-aight. 



> This work saw its inception in a sketch by the fantastic and amazing Merm-aight. Any golden moments in the work that follows are solely due to her generosity and creativity - any faults or errors are mine alone. And of course, copyright(ish) statement: Bioware's characters, not mine, blah blah.

He leans his hip against the side of the booth and watches. The human under his gaze is completely absorbed by the sketch he is working up, colored pens and markers floating randomly through the air as if they weigh nothing at all. This gives Bull a long opportunity to admire the way that the faded blue of the man's shirt contrasts with the deep brown of his skin, how the light from the window he is seated next to makes his dark, carefully styled hair shine in the brilliance of the mid-morning sun. Bull observes the extent of the tattooing along both forearms, letters on his fingers. After a moment, the fierce concentration on the man’s face breaks. As he looks up, his curious storm-grey eyes meeting Bull’s, he asks politely, “Can I help you?”

 

The markers he has been levitating hover briefly and then slowly sink, like dropped feathers. “Yeah,” Bull says, “You Dorian?”

“Yes,” the man says, and then, almost as if he is waking from a dream, his eyes widen, and he says, “Oh! Sorry. You must be Bull. Well, of course you are, with the…” He gestures at Bull’s horns, then rises, extends a hand. They shake, and Dorian gestures to the booth seat. He smiles a little, raising his eyebrows, and sits. “So. A high dragon... yes? On the chest,” Dorian asks, and Bull grins.

“Yeah. A Vinsomer. Like I said in the email, I’m a big time fan.” Despite having spoken to Dorian on the phone already, and through a drawn out series of emails, he hasn’t prepared himself for the fact that Dorian is unashamedly Tevene – the letters on his knuckles spell out the Tevene words _veni_ and _vici_ ; the snake on his arm is part of the heraldry of the Imperium.  Initially, he struggles with it, and then shrugs internally; he’s pretty sure that Dorian himself hasn’t burnt any orphanages. Plus, his body of work speaks for itself, and Bull has already invested too much emotion and time into finding the right artist for his very specific commission.

 

The waitress approaches them then, setting a cup in front of Bull, and as she pours coffee, she asks him in a low voice, “Anything for you, honey?”

“Nah,” Bull starts to say, glancing up at her, then he changes his mind and asks, “Got any pie?”

“Strawberry, banana cream, or chocolate,” she states, and then smiles, her mouth open a little, eyes roving over him, hand going to her loose blonde hair, “You look like a strawberry kind of guy to me.”

Bull snorts laughter and grins at her, almost unconsciously looking her up and down, aware that the tattooist is watching this exchange with a small, cautious smile. “Okay, strawberry it is. Thanks.”

 

“No problem, hon.” She walks away, glancing quickly over her shoulder in an appraising fashion, a look that Bull misses, but Dorian catches. He raises his eyebrows slightly, tugs at the stud in his earlobe and sniffs. Then he begins to rummage in the portfolio at his feet, retrieving a large, spiral bound drawing pad, much larger than the doodling book he has already on the table. He pushes his chair back on two legs, opening the huge book to flick through the leaves to the right page. Finally, he finds what he’s looking for, and opens out the book along the binding. He flips it around for Bull to see, and Bull slides his teeth against an intake of breath so sharp it astonishes even himself. Dorian has shown him exactly the image he has been carrying around with him for years; a black high dragon, orange and white stripes over its body and legs, throat glowing blue with lightning, wings extended as if to land, scales and horns glistening. Wordlessly, watching Bull’s face seriously, Dorian pulls up the sheet of transparent vellum over the top of the line drawing underneath, and all the colour is removed, revealing more of the detail. There is more, more here than Bull could ever have explained on the phone, no matter how much he talked; the way the dragon almost seems to glow with its own light, the power and beauty in the delicate sweep of the horns, the incredibly fearsome, yet slightly sad expression in its eye. “Wow,” Bull breathes, “I’m never gonna wear a shirt again after this.”

“Honestly, I’m surprised they make shirts in your size at all. But that’s certainly the response I was looking for,” Dorian says, and smiles confidently, eyes narrowing as he does.

 

Bull swallows, unable to tear his eyes away from the image. Eerily, it looks very like the first dragon he ever saw - even the flex and curvature at the base of it’s wings and the tilt of it’s head look the same as what he remembers. Bull smiles slightly as the memory brings with it other sensory information - the salt tang of the sea blending with the dull copper scent of blood in the air, the cold wind coming from the coast, the way the gulls had silenced at the dragon’s scream as it flew down at them from its nest on the clifftop above. He sighs wistfully again, and asks, “When can we start?”

As Dorian grins and leans back to put the drawing away, Bull’s pie arrives. The waitress leans in, her back to Dorian, and she smiles at Bull, sticky sweet and slow, her hand lingering a little on the plate. Her lips part a little as she rises, still looking at Bull, and she mouths, “Call me,” then looks down at the napkin that his fork is resting on. He smiles a little and shrugs noncommittally, then she turns and walks away. As Bull tucks the first piece of the pale pink pie into his mouth, Dorian glances up from the calendar on his phone, which he’s been fiddling with since the waitress arrived.

“I’m booked solid until Friday the 12th,” he tells Bull, an apologetic look on his face. “It’ll probably go to three or four sessions too, depending on how long we can sit.”

Bull shrugs and says through a mouthful, “I can sit for a pretty long time.”

Dorian raises an eyebrow and says, “Some Qunari mind trick, no doubt. It’s not just about you though. With this kind of work… well, there’s a lot of things that need to be right, exactly right. Also, I’m fairly sure you don’t want me flaking out on you.” Bull nods and puts down his fork, pie half unfinished. It’s okay, really too sweet for his taste. He wipes the napkin across his lips, and throws it on his plate. The waitress’ number sits there, inside a ring of lipstick, and Bull sees Dorian’s eyes flick quickly to it then away again before Bull asks, “Is that likely? A flake out? Tell me now if it is.”

“Oh for… no, it’s not likely, thank you very much. Not even a remote possibility.” Dorian casts his eyes down, and then glares at Bull, “Look, if we’re going to do the bratty Tevene versus sullen Qunari thing, let’s just get it out of the way now, please? I couldn’t stand the anticipation, if it were all still to come.” His voice positively drips with sarcasm, and Bull feels himself warming to the man, now that he’s shown a little of what lies under the professional exterior.

Truth is, Bull is completely comfortable with the idea of this beautiful man tattooing a beautiful, but ultimately pointless image onto him. In fact, he finds it downright erotic, the sheer aestheticism of the whole endeavour. He chuckles a little and says, “The twelfth’s okay for me.”

 

“Alright,” Dorian says, rather impatiently, and taps on the phone screen with his index finger, “Half-noon?”

When Bull nods, Dorian echoes the gesture and then says, “Here’s the laundry list: Make sure you’re well rested. Eat something before your appointment, even if you’re not feeling like it - it’ll help. You might want to take a couple of painkillers before the appointment; that’s okay, just not aspirin types, because that thins your blood.” He shrugs, “Some people say that it helps, but I don’t buy it, myself. And you’ll need to stop at the shop sometime, pay your deposit. Ask for Al, or Anders, if I’m not around.”

Bull nods again, and tells Dorian, “Sure. You know this isn’t my first rodeo though, right?”

“Yes. You said in your email. And on the phone,” the tattooist replies, a trifle sharply, “But I have to give you the whole spiel. It’d be remiss of me otherwise.” He puts his phone away, then makes a wiping gesture over the table, and the markers soar back up, filing rapidly through the air and into the open portfolio, followed by the smaller notebook in front of Dorian. He nods to Bull and rises, extending a hand to him, saying, “See you on the twelfth then. If I don’t see you at the shop before that.” Bull shakes the proffered hand, and says, smiling, “Yeah, okay.”

The tattooist turns to go, and then abruptly turns back, leans over the small table, looks at Bull intently and gestures to the napkin with the hand not holding his portfolio. “Oh, Bull?” he says in a low voice, “That’s Calpernia. I wouldn’t - trust me, I really wouldn’t.”

Bull laughs, a deep rumbling, and looks back, just as intently into Dorian’s kohl-smeared eyes, telling him, “Maybe I won’t.”

 

++

 

In the next week, Bull stops by the Isle of Dogs studio, where Dorian works, to pay his deposit. He can’t get Dorian’s drawing out of his head; it keeps recurring to him at odd moments, pulling a smile to his lips. When he pushes against the cool glass of the door, he’s greeted with a faint smell of antiseptic and an industrious buzzing. He looks around the airy, narrow space, noting the framed photographs in black and white on the wall - a serious, bearded man with his arms folded over the griffon insignia on his chest, and a laughing human man with a smiling elven woman, as well as various hygiene certifications and even some awards. These last seem haphazardly framed at best, as if they are only there because someone felt they should be, rather from any desire to promote them. He peers through to the back of the space, wondering if he can spot Dorian, when a broad-shouldered, blonde human of medium height pops his head out of an adjacent office and says, “Ooh, you’re a big one. You have an appointment?” Without waiting for a reply, he yells back into the studio, “‘Ders? You free, buddy? Got a client here, and I’m on the phone with Gwen..!”

 

“You’re always on the phone with Gwen,” comes the grumpy sounding reply from the back, “Fuck off, I’m fixing this autoclave.”

Bull snickers as the man from the office gives him an apologetic look, and says, “Sorry pal, two seconds.” He ducks back into the office and Bull looks through the open space where three tattooists are working. At the front left station, there is a woman, seated with her back to Bull, dressed in plain dark jeans and a white singlet. She is tattooing the back of a man with blonde, wavy hair. Bull can see her own back is covered in various tattoos, mostly skulls, and her right arm is tattooed in a sleeve of a design of prophet’s laurel with eyes peering through the leaves, though there is no colour in any of the work she sports. She looks up from the black and white rendering of warrior Andraste that she’s finishing up, and she smiles at Bull quickly, wiping away blood and ink from the surface of her clients skin. Then she asks her client in a low voice, accented with the tones of a Nevarran, “Still okay?” The man nods, and she continues.

 

Bull looks at the next tattooist, a dwarf, at the station in the centre back of the room. His red hair is held back by a narrow strip of rawhide, red shirt sleeves wound back. The visible parts of both arms are tattooed with lines and lines of script, all different fonts and colours, everything from darkest proto-gothic typefaces in muted, stormy colours to crisp sans serif in candy shades. He talks almost incessantly, in a low tone of voice, working steadily on what looks like blackletter script down the forearm of an elven woman, with short, dark, spiky hair, bottle-green skinny jeans and a grey t-shirt with a red plaid scarf. She lets out a sudden screech of laughter, then covers her mouth with her free hand, green eyes glistening above the dark red nail-polish. “Sorry!” she tells the room through her fingers, and the dwarf chuckles and shakes his head without looking up from his work.

 

The final tattooist, an elf clad all in black, the flesh of his earlobes pulled around hollow tunnels of metal, glares at the laughing woman briefly, before shaking his white hair out of his eyes and going back to work on the bird he is finishing up on the wrist of an older woman with short grey hair. She looks at the elf very briefly, smiles, then up to Bull, then goes back to whatever she is reading on the glowing screen of her ebook reader, crossing her feet in their sensible shoes under the hem of her long skirt. The elf has no tattoos apparent, but he does have thick traceries of what looks like scarification etched into all the skin visible under the sleeves and collar of the black cotton of his long sleeved t-shirt. As Bull continues to watch, a tall, thin man with his arms, hands and neck heavily tattooed, dressed in a pale blue t-shirt emblazoned with the word _Bratmobile_ in hot pink, and jeans with holes in the knees, emerges from the back room behind the dwarf’s station. The man pauses and rolls his eyes when he sees Bull then begins walking toward him, but stops when he notices the yellow bin on the shelf behind the dwarf. He hefts it, and his mouth pulls into a grimace of annoyance. Then he asks the room in general, in a pissed-off tone of voice, “Who let this sharps bin get so full?”

 

“Tryin’ to work here, Blondie…” the dwarf grumbles.

The man glowers at him and says sharply, “Yeah, I can see that, Varric. It’s about to become a health hazard though.” He sighs and picks up the bin, takes it into the back room, then returns, plonking a new, empty one in it’s place. The dwarf sighs and shakes his head, and shares a quick glance with the white-haired elf, who shrugs as if to say 'what do you expect?' and turns back to his work.  The tall man strides forward, pulling the band out of his honey-blonde hair and then scraping it back again with his fingers. He asks Bull, “You’re not still waiting, are you?”

Bull grins, “Yeah.”

 

“Oh for fuck sakes…” the man sighs in annoyance, glancing toward the office. “Okay, sorry, dude. Do you have an appointment?”

“Yeah,” Bull confirms, “It’s with Dorian, a couple of weeks from now, on the twelfth. I’m paying the deposit today.”

“Oh! Our new guy,” the man says, smiling. He takes a huge ledger down from a shelf and starts flicking through it rapidly, the green runes on his fingers and knuckles flashing. He pauses to scratch at the tattoo of a cat playing with a ball of twine on his left arm, then smiles more broadly when his eyes alight on the right date. He looks up at Bull to say, “Oh man, this is gonna be awesome. A kick-ass high dragon. And Dorian’s good, real good. We’re lucky to get him.” As he’s taking Bull’s money, the blond man steps out of the office, grinning sheepishly.

“Sorry, ‘Ders,” he says to the taller man, “And sorry to keep you waiting too, guy. Gwen, my wife,” he nods at Bull, including him in the conversation, “she’s off to the Anderfels in like, three weeks, and she’s all…” he waggles his hands around his shoulders, holds his mouth open in a panicked O, shakes his hips. He looks at Anders, and says, “She may be great at killing archdemons, but when it comes to organizing passports..." He shrugs and continues, "You know. It’s Weisshaupt. Kind of a big deal.”

Anders sighs and says, “Yeah, yeah, Al.” He begins to write out a receipt for Bull, scratching away with a ballpoint.

Al’s face brightens, and he tells Anders, “She says to say hi, though.”

“That’s unlike her,” Anders says, clearly through a carefully maintained straight-face. “Usually all she can say to me is ‘oh Maaaker, Anders,’” He rolls his eyes back in a parody of ecstasy and continues in a falsetto moan, “‘Oh, oh yeeeaah, that’s much bigger than Al’s...’”

Al brays laughter, shaking his head, and mutters, “You’re a fucking charmer, you are.”

Anders tears off the receipt, grinning, and says to Al, “What can I say? It’s a gift.” Then he tells Bull as he holds the slip of paper out, “There you go. You don’t need to bring it or anything. We keep records of that stuff.” Bull grins as he takes the slip of paper, and Anders smiles back and says, “See you on the twelfth.”


	2. Chapter 2

Bull arrives early for his twelve thirty appointment.  The lights are on inside the studio, but the door is locked when he tries it.  He knocks, but can’t see any movement in the shop.  Checking the time on his watch, he looks over at the little bar across the street, its doors flung wide in the summer heat.  He sighs, leans with his back against the large window of the studio, and then starts up suddenly when he hears the door open behind him.  “Hey, Bull,” Dorian says, smiling and holding the door open for him, “Sorry about that.  How are you feeling?”

“Good.  Ready,” Bull says, but it’s more than that.  Despite telling Dorian that it wasn’t his first time, it’s been years since he got his first tattoos, at a shady dive when he was on service in Seheron, and he’s never had a piece this large done.  “More importantly,” he says to Dorian as he steps through the door, “How are _you_ feeling?”

“Actually,” Dorian says, heading past him and into the studio, leaving the barrier gate between the reception and the work space open for Bull to follow, “I’m feeling even more confident in my astonishing abilities than usual.  Which is saying something.”  He rubs his hands together and gestures at the front right station, the one Bull had last seen occupied by the elf with the scars.  As they enter, Anders looks up from the very back station to grin at Dorian and trills, “High dragon time!”  His client is dark haired, wearing a black t-shirt with the word _Sepultura_ in narrow red serif, above a picture of a human skull.  His pants are red stovepipes, worn with Docs laced haphazardly.  He flicks at the ring through his septum and grins at Dorian and Bull lazily, before looking at Anders and murmuring, “Concentrate on that line, babe.”

 

Anders rolls his eyes at the man, then mockingly says, “Yes, love.”  The dark haired man looks at the top of Anders’ head, still smiling, as Anders drops his eyes back to look at the glyph he is outlining, the tattoo gun running in a smooth arc over the man’s flesh.  “I got these lines by heart now,” Anders tells the man, “You get any more power glyphs on you, Hawke-baby, you’ll turn into a lightning bolt.”

Hawke itches his stomach through his t-shirt and says with a grin, “You’re only bitter because I don’t want any more drawings of Blighted cats.  Do you think I’ll turn into a cat if you tattoo enough pictures of them on me?”

“Uh, I wish!  Imagine you as a cat…awww.  I’d probably call you… Mister Grump.”  He laughs at his own joke, and then reminds Hawke, while still burring away with the tattoo gun, “Yours isn’t a cat, anyway, it’s a red lion.  I remember you being very specific about it not being a domestic feline.” Anders raises his head, grins at Hawke, “Though I suppose, if you were a cat, your tongue would be a lot rougher...”

 

Dorian clears his throat and Bull looks at him, smiling.  “If you’re waiting for those to two finish their comedy routine,” he says in a bored tone of voice, “You’ll never get this done.”

Bull laughs, and turns to sit on the edge of the dentist’s style chair.  “Okay, so…” Dorian begins, and fishes a rolled up piece of paper out from under the seat.  “First we need to confirm you’re still happy with the line work.”  He unrolls the paper, holds it out to Bull, a tentative, guarded expression on his face.

 

Bull takes the paper, and just like that, he’s head over heels again.  Dorian has worked up the initial sketches, refined some of the details in the horns and around the mouth, changed very slightly the angle that the feet are splayed at, making it more realistic.  “Oh man,” is all Bull can manage, but Dorian is still looking at him almost challengingly.

“Really?" he asks, "Nothing you want to change?  No niggling details?  This is going to be on you for a while, you know.  We can’t exactly change it in the middle.”

“No, no way, no changes.  I didn’t think this could get better, but…” Bull exhales slowly, and then says, very seriously, “You’ve really excelled here.”  Dorian bites his lower lip, flashes a grin at him, then raises his eyebrows and looks down in a gesture of such fake modesty that Bull almost laughs.  “It’s just…” Bull starts, and Dorian’s grin quickly dies, “I just thought… it’d be bigger.”

“Oh!  That’s easy,” Dorian tells him in a relieved tone of voice, “The miracle of modern technology.”  With that he plucks the paper from Bull’s fingers and heads to a photocopier, elderly and beige.  The machine whirs noisily, then Dorian returns, two sheets of A3 paper in his hands.  He holds the sheets together for Bull, and Bull sees he’s enlarged the original drawing so that it will cover almost all of Bull’s chest.  Bull’s eyes go wide and he growls, “That’s it.” Dorian smiles.  

“See?  Simple.  Put yourself in the hands of a master.”  The smile widens, becomes almost hungry.  “Show me some skin, Bull. I’ll put this on a transfer and we’ll look at placements.”

 

++

 

Dorian frowns behind Bull’s back. Bull twists, his arms half upraised, looking at the placement of the transfer in the full-length mirror attached to a wall.  Bull is trying to not let his enthusiasm get the better of him, but is having a hard time of it, and somehow Dorian himself is making it worse.  So Bull tries to ignore those intent eyes, the fingers that he can see twirling a pen in a circle over his thumb in a restless gesture, and pretends that he’s considering the placement deeply.  Eventually, he gives up the pretense and turns.  Dorian looks up at him, his expression changing to one of casual indifference, and Bull says, “Don’t know whatcha lookin’ so nervous for.  It’s perfect.”  

The tension in Dorian’s shoulders leaves, and they sag.  “Well,” he says, “of course it is.  It’s my work, for one thing.  And I mean, dragons,” he rolls his eyes, “It’s like ‘Tattoos, 101’.”

“Hey man, I resent that remark - couldn’t do a dragon if I tried,” Varric quips, half-way through setting up his station.  Anders had cleaned up and left about half an hour ago, and the studio has been coming to life ever since.  First the short-haired Nevarran woman, to whom Dorian had nodded and said “Hi Cass”, receiving only a grunt in reply, has been awaiting an appointment by sitting in the reception area, drawing.  Then Varric and Al had arrived, Al immediately retreating to his office, looking stony-faced, Varric stopping to chat to Cass before coming through to the studio.  He had looked over at Bull and Dorian, grinned, then continued on to the back station.  Bull takes a final look in the mirror, quickly, then turns back to Dorian, rubs his good eye and says again, “Perfect.”  Dorian swallows quickly, looks down at the floor for a second and then shoots a grin up at Bull.  “Perfect,” he repeats, “A word I never get sick of hearing, despite how often it’s thrown in my direction.”  Still smiling, he steps aside and gestures to the chair. “Let’s begin then,” he says.

 

Dorian’s hands are warm inside the gloves, against Bull’s skin.  Bull’s hands are under his head, forearms under his horns, feeling for all the world like he is relaxing on the beach.  He smiles at the mental image, can’t remember the last time he went to a beach to relax.  The tattoo machine buzzes, an insectile sound, and Dorian, one hand on Bull’s chest, says, “I’m going to start now.  Try to stay relaxed, alright?”  Bull nods and exhales, like a sigh.  He can hear Al saying something in a  sharp tone of voice from his office, and the sound of the passers by on the street front outside.  Dorian has elected to begin on the very bottom edge of the wing, which just grazes the last of Bull’s ribs.  “It’s going to tickle and sting,” Dorian had warned him, so Bull has mentally prepared himself to resist shifting in either discomfort or irritation.  Neither sensation seems as bad as what he’s prepared himself for, and it’s not long before he’s comfortable enough with it to breathe normally.  Dorian is frowning in concentration, leaning over slightly under the ridge of Bull’s pectoral muscle, the needles within the gun scraping and piercing, injecting the tiny amounts of ink that will, when taken together, form the lines at the very borders of the wing.  “If I might ask,” Dorian says, not looking up from his work, “what do you do?  Do dragons come into it?”

Bull laughs a little and says, “Nah.  I’m a...contractor these days.”  Dorian looks at him a trifle sharply from under his brow, then drops his eyes and says, “Be mysterious, then.  Contracting what?  Military things?”

“Nah.  You heard of the Ben-Hassrath?”

“You’re a _spy_ _?_ ”  Dorian’s gun pauses momentarily and then he shoots a grin at Bull and stage-whispers, “I don’t think you’re supposed to tell people that.”

Bull chuckles and says, “Well, I could just be lying to impress you.”

 

“Sadly, it takes more than that to impress me.  Now, if you were a military man…”  He sighs, “I do love a good uniform.”

“A Qunari military uniform isn’t composed of that much uniform…”

“I know.  I’ve been chased by a few in my time.  Not that I had that much time for observation, but I was disappointed there was no vitaar.”

Bull frowns, thinking, “Vitaar… yeah, it’s really not used much these days.  Now, it’s more a ceremonial thing.  I mean, it takes a lot of practice to wear it properly, because it's so poisonous.  Which is why it’s really only specific branches of the Antaam that still use them.”

“So it’s not a tattoo?”  Dorian almost sounds disappointed and Bull chuckles before saying, “No, it’s just like… war paint.  Like the Avvar use, but less symbolic and more practical.”  

“What do you do if it rains then?”

Bull laughs loudly, then tells Dorian, “You hope to the Koslun your Kevlar is still functioning properly, I guess.  I don’t know, Dorian, I was never in the Antaam.  The army, I mean.”

 

He’s aware of what Dorian is trying to do, to engage him in conversation so that he won’t think about the pain, but it’s hardly necessary.  Still, he doesn’t mind talking, and Dorian seems like he’s interested enough, not just faking it for the sake of professional relations.  He thinks about asking Dorian about his comment about being chased by Qunari soldiers, wondering which of the port cities of Tevinter that means Dorian comes from.  Before he can ask, however, Dorian has tired of the silence and asked him, “So what is it about dragons then?  If you don’t hunt them for a living?”

“Aw, you know.  I just like them.”

“You just like them.  Nobody just likes dragons.  They’re fearsome!  And majestic!  And scary!”  Dorian pauses, and looks up, smiling slightly, “I just answered my own question, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” Bull grins, “You did.”  He thinks about the reasons he has for getting the tattoo, thinks about how weak they would sound to his superiors, and doesn’t allow any of his uncertainty to show on his face, just keeps smiling at Dorian.

 

Dorian smiles at his work and wipes at what he’s done so far.  He looks up at Bull and the smile widens, and their silence isn’t awkward, but warm, almost companionable.  Bull listens to Cass and her client, overhearing the phrase “...Power Puff Girls, because, you know, they can fly and I’m scared of heights.  And maybe a rainbow behind it, and some hearts or something...”  

“Wow,” Cass says, her voice sounding a little sarcastic, “It sounds… vibrant.”  Bull hears her sigh loudly, and then sees the top of her head over the high counter as she stands.  “I’m sorry,” she tells her potential client, “that’s not going to be something I can do a good job on.  You’d be better off over at Inquisition, with Sera.”

“Oh no, really?” The other woman’s voice says, sounding crushed, “But…”

“It’s nothing personal.  This is just too bright, too outside of what I know.  Look,” she tells the other woman, “I need another coffee.  If you want, we can walk down to Inquisition and I’ll give you an intro.  It’s on my way.”

“Really?” The voice says, and then Varric looks over Dorian’s shoulder and grins at Bull, “Shit, dude.  This is going to be epic.”

“I know,” Dorian purrs, and it gives Bull the tiniest shiver to hear it.

 

Varric takes a last look and smiles at Bull again before heading off to the front of the shop.  “Caaaarver,” he sings as he goes, “Come on, you fuckin’ ratbag.”

“Vaaarric,” comes the reply from the front of the store, “you butt.  Did my big brother come in yet?”

“Haven’t seen him.  He might have come in earlier, with Blondie.  Saw he was here.” Varric shoots another quick look over Dorian’s shoulder as they pass, but the muscular young man with him stops and gazes in open wonder at the beginnings of the dragon on Bull.  Bull observes a tattoo of the name Bethany in dark red cursive script under the young man’s collarbone, just visible above the neck of his clinging white tee shirt. “Putcha eyes back in your head, Junior,” Varric says, and the young man asks him, “Could you do me another mabari?  Like that? And don’t call me Junior.”

“Nope. How many mabari tats do you need, kid?  Fuckin’ Fereldans and your mabari.”  This last is delivered in an undertone.  “Come on, come on, Junior, I got places to be, people to see.”  

“Andraste’s tits, Varric, I’m payin’ you…”

“Not enough to put up with sass, you’re not.”

 

Dorian shakes his head just a little, grimacing as Carver and Varric continue their exchange.  He huffs out a short breath of relief when the sniping dies down a little as the hum of Varric's machine joins his own. There is finally just the noise of industry in the studio. Bull notices that the light has begun to fade from the afternoon and he wonders how long it's been since he arrived.  The bell over the door goes and a voice says, "It's me."  The white haired elf appears, headphones on, portfolio under his arm, and goes straight through to the back room, trailing an audio haze of rapid-fire, tinny drumming after him. "Broody," Bull hears Varric mutter under his breath, and Bull raises his eyebrow as Carver snorts laughter.  Dorian pauses, lifts his gun up and stretches, then turns to ask Varric, "Was that Fenris?"

"Uh huh," Varric confirms, then Dorian says, "I wanted to ask him about a commission for vallaslin..."

"Andraste preserve us, don't. Don't ask him."  Varric lifts his own gun up and, ignoring Carver’s protests, turns to tell Dorian, "He does vallaslin like I do caste markings - like, never. Never ever, end of story."

"Maker, if I’d have known it was such a production…"

"Yeah, I know man, but just..." Varric sighs and tells Dorian as he turns around to face Carver again, "I'll talk to you about it later."

 

++

 

Dorian has moved across the wing and most of the dragon’s body with surprising speed.  After working for a few more minutes, he takes the instrument full away from Bull’s skin, flips a switch on the machine and exhales.  “Wow, Bull. I have to stop for a while.  We’ve been at this for…” he glances at a clock on the wall, “Maker! That long!" He exhales through pursed lips and says, "You weren’t lying when you said you could sit for a long time.”  He revolves his right hand on his wrist, and Bull hears the crackling of tendons.  “Are you okay to take a twenty minute break?” Bull sits up gingerly and looks down at darkened lines on his skin; the skin surrounding the new tattoo is a pinkish grey, but so far, so good.  “Yeah, sure,” he tells Dorian, still eyeing the new lines.  As his skin shifts over the flexing muscles in his chest, he can feel a slight ache.  He wants to touch it, but knows he shouldn’t.  So he sighs instead and looks up to see Dorian looking at him; not at the tattoo, at him.  And when Dorian sees him looking back, he clears his throat, stripping off the latex gloves, concentrating on the motion unnecessarily hard.  Bull frowns a little, confused by the look he’s surprised on Dorian’s face, sure he must have misread it.  “Come stretch your legs if you want,” Dorian offers, “We’ll wrap it up with plastic, just as a temporary thing, and it’s probably best if you leave your shirt open.”  Bull laughs, and tells Dorian, a little huskily, “I don’t have a problem walkin’ around without a shirt.”

“And why would you, looking like that,” Dorian grins, “Let’s go.”

 

Dorian pokes his head into Al’s office on the way through, surprising Al with his head in his hands.  “Al,” Dorian says, and Al immediately raises his head and grins awkwardly, the crown and name Cailin tattooed under it on his neck becoming indecipherable as he twists it to look at Dorian. “Dorian!” he says, too loudly, too cheerfully, then asks, “When did you arrive?”

“I’ve been here for hours.  I just wanted to let you know we’re out for a break.”

“We?  Oh!  Dragon man!” Al immediately gets up, almost tripping over his chair in his eagerness to see the progress.  He swears under his breath then smiles up at Bull, “Did I introduce myself?  I’m Al, Alistair Theirin, I know we met the other day, but I’d rather introduce myself twice than you had a rude bastard staring at your chest.”  Bull chuckles, and offers his hand to Al, telling him his name.  He then pulls the two halves of his button up shirt aside for Al to get a better look.  “The Bull!  I like it, it suits you,” Al says, then bends to inspect Dorian’s handiwork through it’s wrapping.  His eyes narrow, obviously thinking, and Dorian shuffles, taps out a rhythm on the side of his leg.  Eventually, Al looks at Dorian and tells him in a voice laden with admiration, “This… wow, Dorian, this is going to be great.  It’s really good work.”  He grins broadly, claps Dorian on the shoulder, then chuckles, “Now, if you could direct yourselves down past Inquisition, talking loudly about how you didn’t get this done there, that’d be great.”

 

Dorian laughs, and then raises his eyebrows in the pretence of shock, "Alistair! I'm appalled at the very notion I could use my alarming amount of talent for such an evil end. But thank you."  He then asks, “Did Gwen get away alright?”  Al rolls his eyes and says through a tense smile, “Yeah, not without the prerequisite litany of ‘make sure you eat properly!  and walk the dog!  and not too much drinking with those Templar friends of yours!  or the Warden friends! did I say about eating properly?’”  He laughs, making a yapping gesture with one hand, but even Bull can tell he doesn’t mean it nastily.  Then Al rubs a hand over his eyes and says, “Better get back to it.  See you guys.”  Dorian flaps a hand and Bull smiles at him and says, “‘Bye, Al.  Nice to see ya.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phwoar, thanks so much for all the lovely enthusiasm so far! I tried to hold back, but it looks like I won't be able to resist and you'll get a new chapter every day until it's all up. Also, because I'm a nerd for music (and there are a few music references coming up, and there have been band t-shirts so far), there is actually a playlist associated with this fic, which you can find, should you wish to, at [this link](https://open.spotify.com/user/fictionalgraveyard/playlist/70NazgjdSr5Mvj3zFh5bR7).


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this is where things start to get interesting, so I'm just going to do a teeny warning that there is a bit of self-hating and hate-speech in this chapter. It's only teeny, but it is there. Also, because I rag on people all day long in my day job about referencing their shit, the lyrics are from 'I Can Hear Music', originally written by Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich and Phil Spector in 1966. I listened to the Beach Boys version of this song, from the 1969 album 20/20.

The air on the street is still warm - this summer in Redcliffe has been hotter than most, and forecasters have predicted another heatwave year.  So the city swelters and the asphalt melts and blisters, as the somnolent drone of boats on the lake filter through the noise of the traffic.  As they cross the road outside the Isle of Dogs, Bull trailing along after Dorian, letting him lead, Bull hears a snatch of song from an apartment above street level, catches the phrase, ‘...hear music; whenever you touch me, baby, whenever you’re near…’.  Then a sea-plane flies overhead and the song is lost.  Dorian looks into the window of a second hand book store as they pass, pauses momentarily as some title catches his eye, and then continues walking.  “Do you want to check it out?” Bull asks, and Dorian says, “No.  It’s alright.  I don’t want to collect too much stuff.”

“Oh.  Are you… moving house?”

“Mmm.  Something like that, I suppose.”  Dorian looks sidelong at Bull then says, “I don’t know how long I’ll be here, that’s all.  No sense in buying a lot of stuff I’ve got to get home somehow.”

“And where is home?”

“Minrathous.”  Dorian says the name of the city quietly, an odd mixture of pride and tentativeness in his voice.  “I’ve got a contract with Al for a year, but I’ll go home after that.”  Bull nods, and says in a casual tone, “Tevinter.”

“Yes.  Tevinter.”  Dorian smiles, but there is a note of bitterness to it, and that leaches into his voice when he explains, the words sounding like learned lines, “I am a scion of House Pavus, heir apparent to the name and fortunes of a House of ancient power and magic.”  He grunts out a laugh, and then thrusts his hands deep into his pockets and looks away before saying, “At least I would be, if my father didn’t hate my guts.”

 

Bull is silent for a while, wondering if Dorian will continue.  He doesn’t elaborate immediately though, and Bull is just about to wonder aloud if they should be getting back when Dorian rubs the snake on his forearm almost absent mindedly and says, “Ah, Tevinter is pretty fucked up.  But even with things as they stand with Dad, I just… I know I could be more use there than anywhere else.  I know it.  It’s my home, and I love it, in spite of all its faults.  But…”  He stares at the pavement under his feet for a moment before continuing, “the phrase ‘disappointing little faggot’ keeps coming to mind whenever I think of going back.”  Bull watches Dorian’s face carefully, as the blank look slides over what is underneath, his eyes clouding over, and despite the revelation, still gets the sense that that's not the full story.  Then Dorian huffs out a breath and shudders laughter, “Maker, I’m sorry.  That got unnecessarily heavy.”

 

They have come up one of the wharves that line this side of Lake Calenhad.  Bull watches the sun crest the tops of the distant hills, turning the surrounding country to gold.  Both of them are lost in thought, Bull standing with his hands in his pockets, willing himself not to look at Dorian, because he knows if he does, he will want to say that it’s alright, asit tal-eb, you’re not what your father thinks of you, and that sort of blind platitude isn't what Dorian appears to need or want. So Bull closes his teeth in front of the words and offers nothing at all. From the corner of his eye he sees Dorian turn his head towards him and open his mouth to speak, when they hear a shout from behind them, and then Dorian’s name.

 

Bull turns and sees Anders, standing across the road, hands cupped around his grinning mouth.  Anders waves, and then yells, “You done for the day?”

“No,” Dorian yells back, beginning to walk forward, off the wharf, Bull following, “We’re heading back now!  And er… Bull…” he continues in a much lower tone of voice, “If you could, you know, not…”

“Don’t worry, Dorian.  We all got our secrets.”  He smiles at Dorian and Dorian smiles back.  Then Dorian finishes walking the last few paces to where Anders stands, and punches him lightly on the arm by way of greeting, “Good timing.  We’re going to need your skills in a bit.”

 

They head back to the studio together, Bull walking a little behind the two humans.  Anders talks almost as much as Dorian, and while Bull enjoys listening to them, his mind is mostly occupied in thinking about his reaction to Dorian's revelations about his relationship with his father.  Bull has heard a lot more alarming emotional baggage from people that he knows much better, without blinking his eye, so it is very concerning to him how deeply he suddenly feels about this man’s - no, this young human mage’s - spat with his father.  “...Cleaned up mouse guts for the rest of the afternoon.  Fuck my life.” Bull overhears Anders complain, and Dorian laughs, “Hawke never..?”

“No way!  Of course not.  Hawke wouldn't notice mess if it bit him on his delectable arse.  I found a trophy of Clawface’s in the cereal box once, and he didn’t bat an eyelid, just said he’d eat around it.”

“Ughh, Maker.”  Dorian shudders theatrically, “That’s disgusting!”

“Yeah.  My man, disgusting all Thedas since 9:05 Dragon.”  Anders sighs and asks Dorian, a note of concern in his voice, “Have you seen Al yet?”

“Mmm-hmm,” Dorian says, nodding, “He seemed… quite distracted.”

“Yeah, I thought he would be.  It’s this paternity thing with that Morrigan woman.  Ugh, poor Gwen.”  Anders glances back at Bull and then fully turns around, walking backwards, studying Bull’s chest.  “Andraste’s tits, you didn’t do all that this afternoon did you?”  He stops, gazing in frank admiration at the work, and then up at Bull, “Dude, you must be a machine!  Or… a golem, maybe?”

Bull laughs, “Nah, just a rank-and-file Qunari.”

Anders breathes out through his long nose, and tilts his head, still studying Bulls chest, then he points at an area on the design and asks Dorian, “Are you worried about the ink bleeding here?  I can fix that up real quick if you are.”  Dorian nods, and then says, “Come on, you can do that while I get set up again.”

 

++

 

When they return to the studio, Varric greets them from the mangey sofa to the right of the entrance, a sketchbook open on his raised knees, pen in hand.  “Al’s in back, workin’ on Fenris’ sword again.  He’s gonna need you,” he tells Anders and Anders shrugs, says “I told him that was a bad idea.  Too much scarring back there,” and sighs.  They continue through the open partition.  Cass is working on a group of tiny musical notes on the foot of a giggling red haired woman and doesn’t look up.  Bull can’t help himself; he grins a little lopsidedly at the redhead and she grins back at him.  Then he continues past, settling himself back on the chair as Dorian begins prepping for the second wing, shifting everything he needs from one side of the chair to the other.  Anders snaps on a pair of gloves and looks again at the place that he’d suggested the ink would bleed.  “Okay, this might feel a bit odd, but I’m just going to put a little barrier under the skin, around here,” he touches a space just under the ridge of Bull’s pectoral muscle, “Just to make sure that ink says nice and crisp.  It’s going to feel like you’ve got something caught under there, but trust me, the feeling dissipates fast.  Or it should.  If you still feel weird after Dorian’s done, let me know, ‘kay?”

 

Bull nods and then Anders puts his gloved palm full against the side of Bull’s ribs, his hand very cold in comparison to Dorian’s.  He then makes a strange facial expression. Bull feels a tingling, then a sensation like a rapid growth of crystals blossoms under his skin, sharp and strange, awkward.  The feeling pares down until it is located immediately under the part of the tattoo that Anders was trying to isolate, and then Anders removes his hand.  Bull desperately wants to scratch it, and Anders grins, seeming to read Bulls thoughts, and tells him, “Yeah, itches like fuck too.  It’s the healing.  Sorry man, try not to scratch it.”  Anders strips off the gloves quickly, dropping them into a nearby bin, then pumps hand sanitizer onto his hands and gets a new pair.  He looks over at Al and asks, “How’s it going?”

“Great,” Al tells him, sounding strained, then Bull hears Fenris tell him, “It’s not going great.  Don't sugarcoat it.”

“Fenris, guy, don’t be so dramatic,” Anders says in an irritated tone.  Then Dorian says, as he pulls on his own gloves, “How are you feeling?  This won’t take too much longer now.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Bull says, then asks, “Hey, you’re magic-enabled.  How come you didn’t do what Anders did?”

 

Dorian laughs and picks up the tattoo gun, “Maker, magic-enabled! What a horrible term.  No-one just says mage down here, it’s like it’s a dirty word in the south.”  He chuckles again, and says, “Alright if I start?”  Bull nods and Dorian takes a few moments to get into his rhythm again before responding to Bull’s question.  “Anders has a much larger gift for that kind of thing than I do.  I can do it, but…” he shrugs, glances up at Bull, “It’s harder for me, and the results aren’t as good.  Surprising, I know.  Something I'm not very good at!" He chuckles a little, then continues, "He’s also got a lot of enhancing glyphs that I don’t have - that green ink on his hands and wrists.  That kind of thing can give you enhanced skills if you already have them, but it can’t make something out of nothing.  Tattooists like that, they’re in high demand - if you can get healing done more rapidly, then you can enhance the colour, reduce the ink-bleed in a mundane tattoo, like your dragon here, or you can apply more force to a magical tattoo, like the ones you saw Anders doing on Hawke this morning.  It’s a fascinating concept.”  Bull smiles, trying not to think of the awful scratching sensation under the place where Anders has put the barrier.  “You seem to know a lot about it,” he tells Dorian, and Dorian shrugs and says smugly, “I do.  Although in all honesty, I wouldn’t get me started; I could chew your ear off about tattoos and magic.”

“Chew away,” Bull tells him, then asks, “So do you have any… enhancements?”

 

Dorian nods, and says, “Well, yes, a couple.  It’s much easier to get that kind of work done in Tevinter; that’s kind of the ‘traditional’ type of tattooing there.  The old guard aren’t so into it, but it’s actually ancient, goes back to the days of Andraste, maybe even before that if we could find any records for it.  I suppose I can understand why the old guard, guys like…” he clears his throat, “well, you know, older people, won’t have it done; it’s aligned, at least in the public imagination, with blood magic, which is surface-illegal in the Imperium.  It’s not blood magic of course, but...” He pauses, glancing at Fenris in the next station and quickly changes the topic, “Anyway, I’ve got a summoner, and a couple of general power ones, but I got a simulacrum over top of a haste spell done years ago that’s proved the most handy.” He smiles to himself, and tells Bull, “Handy for getting out of trouble quickly.”

“How does it work?”

Dorian laughs quickly and says, “Now that would be telling!  And we all know a great magician never reveals his secrets.”  He smiles at Bull awkwardly, nervously, then looks back down at his work.

 

There grows an uncomfortable silence between them.  Bull’s arms, held above his head for so long during the earlier part of the session, are beginning to protest by going to sleep, so he tries to tense and release his biceps to keep them awake, hoping it won’t be too noticeable.  Soon though, too soon, Dorian stops what he’s doing and says, looking at Bull’s arms, “Er, Bull..?”

“Sorry, Dorian.”  Bull smiles sheepishly, “My arms are going to sleep.”

“Oh, for the love of… if you want a break, you just have to say! Trying to tough it out,” he rolls his eyes and sits up, allowing Bull to pull his arms out from under his head.  “You’ve done amazingly well, I’ve only got a tiny bit more to do and then we’ll be finished for today.  Though I’m glad I didn’t book anything else… You’ve quite exhausted me, I’m afraid.”

“Actually, I’m kind of tired too,” Bull says, and then chuckles, “Who knew lying still for so long could be this exhausting?”

Dorian smiles and laughs a little, as Bull rolls his shoulders in their sockets, listening to Al hum under his breath as he works.  The feeling is returning to his arms, so he reclines back down in the chair and puts his arms back into their upraised position.  Cass is chatting to her client, and Bull smiles when he hears the woman speaking in an Orlesian accent.   _Red hair and Orlesian_ , he thinks to himself, smiling, then Dorian says, “You know, I wonder sometimes, what makes people get tattoos.  Most of my own tattoos are symbolic of something, or useful.  But there are people out there who just like the look of something, want it on them forever.”  He shakes his head and says, “I don’t understand that, myself.”

 

“Oh, sure,” Bull says, then thinks a little before he says, “I’m not a great example of this, but in Qunari culture, we don’t really have anything that’s not useful.  There’s nothing that’s purely decorative; there’s inspirational art and stuff, like of the Koslun and things related to the Qun, but nothing that’s just... pretty.  So I can see the appeal.  Of something that doesn’t really serve a purpose, or tells you something, it just is.  And that is happens to be nice to look at.  I mean, that can be a function too, right?”  Dorian nods and says, “As someone who sets great store by aesthetic appeal, makes a living from mostly purposeless images, I agree wholeheartedly.”  Bull chuckles and they lapse into silence again, but it’s much warmer this time, like they’ve talked through the awkwardness of Dorian’s confession.  Bull still can’t get his head around the smooth transition his emotions have done - he knows he’s been attracted to Dorian from the moment he saw him, and if it was just lust, he could put a name on that jar and put it away somewhere on a high, dusty shelf in his mind if that was what the situation required.  But it’s not, or lust isn’t all of it, and he knows that too.  There is a kinship that he feels with this young man, something which is appealing and frightening at the same time.  And Bull, for the first time in his life, is not really sure how to proceed.  He hates not knowing.  He hates the loss of control it implies, but there is a kernel within that emotion of ...something else as well.  Something not entirely unpleasant.

 

It is as Bull is thinking these thoughts that finally, Dorian sits up and takes the tattoo gun away.  He grins smugly, looking into Bull’s face, and says, “That’s it.  The outline is done.”

“For real?” Bull looks at Dorian, astonished at his speed, then down at his chest.  And indeed, there it is, the outline of the dragon, the tops of its wings either side of Bull’s collarbone, about an inch down from it, it’s head over his heart, the bottom-most claws either side of the bottom of his breastbone.  It’s still very basic, but Bull is excited to see how far it has come in such a short space of time, after years of thought.  He smiles and shakes his head a little.  “Wow, Dorian” he says, and sighs, “This… this is…”

 

Dorian smiles at him thoughtfully and looks down at his hands for a moment, then the smile broadens and he says, “I know, brilliant, isn’t it?  Sometimes I surprise even myself. And this is only the outline! Now we better get that wrapped up.”  He gets up, stripping off his gloves and crosses to a cupboard behind where Bull is sitting.  After a bit of rummaging, Dorian returns with a small stack of sealed packages, which he puts on the little armrest of the chair on which Bull sits.  After putting on another pair of gloves, he squeezes a palmful of ointment from a tube and applies it to the whole tattoo.  Bull is at pains to keep his breathing regular as Dorian rubs at his chest, concentrating on covering the entire design with the ointment.  He smiles a little to himself, then can’t resist a look up into Dorian’s face.  Dorian keeps rubbing, efficient but gentle, then he catches Bull looking and says, with a raise of his eyebrow, and a smirk only just visible under the curl of his moustache, “It really does need to be rubbed in that well, you know.”

“I wouldn’t have dreamed otherwise.” Bull says airly, then smiles his most promise-laden smile. _Slowly, slowly,_ he keeps repeating to himself, knowing that it’ll be possible to test the waters a little bit later, trying to be patient, not wanting to at all.  

 

Dorian has been saying something about the bandages that he’s now taping onto Bull’s chest, and Bull has failed to catch any of it.  “I’m sorry,” he tells Dorian, looking at him sheepishly, “Could you repeat that?”

“From the beginning?” Dorian looks surprised, then rolls his eyes, “Bull, it’s your tattoo - please try to pay attention.  Trust me, I’m as invested in making sure it heals up properly as you are.  Don’t want a sub-par advertisement of my frankly almost unbelievable skills.”  He huffs out a breath, then tells Bull, again, “You’ll need to keep this dressing on for about four to six hours; it’s catching any leaching ink and other stuff.  After that, you can take it off, give the area a good clean, with antibacterial soap - unfragranced stuff is best.  After that, rub some more of this on it.”  He waggles a little tube at Bull, and then continues to explain the aftercare processes.  It’s quite involved, a lot more so than Bull remembers the instructions being after his first tattoos, where they had wrapped it in plastic-wrap and just told him not to pick at it as it healed.  

 

At last, Dorian is finished.  The new tattoo is swaddled in absorbent bandages, and Bull sits up to rebutton his shirt.  Anders asks, from behind him, “Feeling okay?  Not so itchy?”  Bull takes a second to figure out what he’s talking about, then replies, “Oh, yeah.  Not itchy at all.”  He turns and smiles, “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Anders grins, and then looks back down at the sword Al is shading on Fenris’ back.  It really is huge, running the length of his spine from the hilt at the top of his neck, almost into his hairline, the crossguard between his shoulder blades.  The scars along Fenris’ back are old looking, white against his skin.  They look to Bull, himself no stranger to scars, like they have been cut and re-cut on numerous occasions - a testament to endurance.  Fenris has his headphones on again, looking for all the world like he is asleep, completely at peace.  The sword itself is strangely wrought and intricate, and Bull wonders where the idea for such a fanciful weapon could come from.  Dorian, meanwhile, has come around to his side of the chair and says softly, “It’s a Blade of Mercy.  They’re presented as gifts of great honour in Tevinter, even today.”  He begins to walk toward the reception area, and Bull follows, asking as he does, “Is he Tevene too?”

Dorian raises an eyebrow, slides his eyes to the side, then shrugs.  “Sort of,” he says very quietly, almost as if he is afraid to be overheard.  “I’ve been working here for four months now, and I still feel like I don’t know Fenris at all.  Reticent doesn’t begin to cover it.”  He shrugs again, taking the ledger off the shelf and his phone out of his front pants pocket.  “Okay - we need to set up another time, begin on the shading and colour.  I don’t want to rush it too much, so how is…” he taps the screen on his phone, fusses with it a little, checks the ledger against his calendar.  “One on the… thirty-first?  It’s a Tuesday.”

Bull shrugs and says, “Fine.”

“Okay, well, it’s a few weeks away yet, so if you have any problems, or need clarification,” Dorian grins at Bull, “Then just let me know.  You have my number.  Or, you know… if you’re in the neighbourhood, you can… just come in.  Or give me a call.  If you want.”

The tone of Dorian’s voice has dropped during that last sentence, become low.  A part-sly, part-shy smile is in place, and he is looking at Bull steadily.  Bull feels a slide of excitement in his stomach as he listens to what Dorian is saying without using words.  He grins at Dorian, narrowing his eye, and says in a voice that is more growl than anything else, “See you on the thirty first then.  One.”

“That’s right, Bull,” Dorian says, his voice still pitched low and then he bites his lower lip quickly, before his eyebrow rises and he says, “One.”


	4. Chapter 4

_bzzzt bzzzt bzzzt_

“Mnnfff.”

_bzzzt bzzzt bzzzt_

“Uggh. Wherm’fone?”  A huge hand comes out from beneath the blankets.  Gropes around for a moment on the nightstand.  The hand does not locate the phone.  

_bzzzt bzzzt bzzzt_

“Vashedan.”  Bull pushes himself up off the mattress, gazes around blearily. The mid-morning sunlight streams through the blinds, and he looks about for where he might have left his phone the night before.   

_bzzzt bzzzt bzzzt_

Growling, Bull swings his legs out of bed.  As he does, his legs tangle in the sheets, and he wrestles with them for a few moments, growing more frustrated by the second as the phone continues to vibrate.  He can see it, across the room on the small desk where he must have flung it last night, and he leaps over to it, tapping the green icon on the screen quickly, wondering who it could be - only the message UNKNOWN CALLER appears above the icon.  Still, he keeps the tiredness out of his voice when he holds the phone to his ear and says, “Bull here.”

 

Silence.  Bull is about to ask who it is, when a half-remembered voice sighs and says, “Hey, Bull, it’s Al here.  From the Isle of Dogs?  I’m really sorry to call.  Uh… I was just wondering… you haven’t had a call from Dorian, have you?  I know he’s meant to be working on your dragon today.”

“No,” Bull replies, “No, I haven’t heard from him since the outline got done.”  He pauses, brow furrowing, “So… what?  Do you know if he’s okay?”

“Yeah, that’s just it…” Al says, and Bull can hear the concern in his voice, only veneered lightly with annoyance, “He’s not called in yet, which is really… strange.  And yesterday, he cancelled his afternoon; I overheard him telling ‘Ders he was meeting someone for some family thing.  Sounded kind of urgent.  Anyway,” Al says, almost as if he is suddenly aware that he’s just given Bull a whole lot of what Dorian might consider personal information, “If you haven’t heard from him, he’s gotta be coming in.  He’s really excited about the work you two are doing.  So… yeah.  I guess I’ll see you at one.”  Al chuckles sheepishly, and Bull says, “Yeah.  I’ll be there.  See you, Al.”  He ends the call, thinking.  Who could Dorian have been meeting?  From what he told Bull on the waterfront, relations with at least some of his family were frosty at best.  Still, Bull supposes, it could have been a friend of the family, hopefully bearing an olive branch.  But then… Dorian wouldn’t have just skipped out, gone back to Tevinter… would he?  Bull rubs at his chest, over the outline of the dragon, frowning.  Then he shrugs to himself, thinking he’ll have to find out later.

 

He arrives a little before quarter to one, tucking an arm of his sunglasses inside the neck of his shirt.  It’s another hot day, but the humidity is high, and Bull has seen the thunderheads massing on the horizon.  He’ll be surprised if there isn’t a storm by nightfall.  As he pushes open the door, Al and Anders immediately look to him from their conversation.  Anders raises his eyebrows, looking at Al, and Al heaves a sigh and tells Bull, “We haven’t seen him.  And hi.”  He looks back to Anders, and says, his voice thick with worry, “I gotta go ‘round there.  This is killing me.  He’s only a kid, man, what if he’s..?”

“...he’s not stupid, Al.  But yeah.  I know,”  Anders rolls his eyes, and grimaces, “You can take the Templar out of the Circle…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Al says tiredly.  He shakes his head, sighs again, “Today of all days.”

 

“Well, look,” Anders says, hands out toward Al, the palms facing up, “I’ll go.  You shift as much work as you can.  Cass said she can take Og’s touch up, if he’s okay with that, which he will be because he fancies her.  And Fenris practically arm-wrestled Dorian for that elf dude’s commission, you know, the Antivan guy wanting the fighting crows sleeve.  I’ll text you as soon as I know anything.”

Al sighs again and says quietly, “Yeah.  That’d be great.  Thanks, ‘Ders.”  He smiles gratefully at Anders, then looks at Bull, “So… think we can reschedule you?”

Bull doesn’t even think about it, just asks, looking at Anders, “Can I come with you?”  Anders blinks in surprise, then smiles slowly and breathes out a small laugh, “Yeah, if you want.  He’s a bit like that, right?  Dorian,”  He looks closely at Bull, eyes narrowing slightly, “He gets under your skin.”  Bull rubs the back of his neck, then looks across at Anders, not raising his head.  “Just protecting my investment,” he growls, and Anders snorts and his grin widens.

 

They walk together down a sidestreet, Anders throwing his keys up in the air and catching them repeatedly.  When they reach a battered-looking Mazda, the bumper stickers looking like they are the only things keeping it together, Anders unlocks the driver’s side door and says, “Hang on a sec.”  He takes a cat carrier off the passenger seat and hefts it into the back seat, then shifts the assorted detritus accumulated on the passenger side footwell into the trunk.  When Bull gets in, the little car rocking under the sudden weight, he is immediately assailed with the smell of old French fries and cat piss. He slams the door and immediately winds down the window as Anders gets in.  He laughs at Bull and says, “Yeah, I know - it reeks in here.  Sorry man.  My cat got in here last week, sprayed everywhere.  Nothing stinks like eau de feline.”  When he starts the car, the stereo immediately comes to life, the music seeming to give an extra layer of obnoxiousness to the whole vehicle.  Anders sings along with the low mutter of the lyrics, “...another year has passed, and I'm alright... Lick the salt from my wounds, run into the night...”

 

Bull wrinkles his nose, tries to lean closer to the open window.  He cannot help looking around the battered interior of the car, and notes the stack of CDs stuffed into the well under the stereo, almost all with black covers; the lucky cat sitting on the dashboard, wagging a paw; the little orange and white prescription pill bottle next to a bottle of water in the drink holder next to the gearshift.  Anders takes the corner at the end of the side street too quickly and Bull feels his centre of gravity shift alarmingly.  The tyres shriek a little, then Anders regains control.  He turns the stereo down fractionally before saying to Bull, “So, like, I’m not really sure what we’re getting into here.  Al said he told you that Dorian had told me,” he sighs then continues, “about him meeting someone from back home.  Dorian also said that he’d had an email from his Pops about it.”  Anders grimaces and shoots a look at Bull, who is trying very hard to keep his hands relaxed on his thighs and not grab for the door handle or tromp on an imaginary brake - Anders drives like he thinks road rules are for other people.  “Do you know about them?  Dorian and his dad?”

“A little.  Enough to know that whoever has come all the way to see him has got to be bearing some pretty important news.  Or want to say whatever it is in person.”  Bull pauses, “Whatever it is, it’s bad news, him not showing up.  Do you think…” Bull swallows, “Do you think he’s left town?”

Anders shakes his head.  “Can’t see it happening.  Dorian seems to be the kind of guy who would bleed over work shit, you know?  Like he’d be the kind of guy to show up with the plague, and say it was just a cough.  Definitely not the kind of dude who skips out for no reason.”  Bull nods, somewhat appeased.  He glances away from the road for a moment, and Anders brakes heavily, flipping his indicator on only moments before making a right turn.  He laughs and waves cheerily out the window at the grey BMW left blaring its horn in his wake.  He pulls into the driveway outside a small block of townhouses, parks up outside the final one on the row.  He huffs out a breath and says, “Let’s get out of this nasty-ass car.  Eurgh.”

 

The townhouse is silent, even after Anders hammers on the door for five minutes.  “Dorian!  Come on, buddy, it’s me.”  He sighs, looks at Bull, who shrugs and motions him aside.  He looks at the door for a moment, listens carefully, and tries the doorknob.  It turns smoothly - unlocked.  Bull pushes it open, and says, “Dorian?  You here?  It’s Bull.  Anders is here too.”  Still nothing, but Bull hears the faint sound of a groan from somewhere upstairs, and then a slightly louder thud.  “There’s definitely someone here,” he tells Anders, and the human nods back at him, fists clenched, looking worried and angry at the same time. Bull sighs and says, “Fuck it,” and goes in, Anders right behind him.  

 

“Dorian?”  Anders yells up the stairs, “Dorian!  We’re coming up.  ”  He turns to Bull and says “That… if his dad or whoever has made him do something stupid…” He sighs heavily, and finishes, “He better be okay.”  His jaw works, and he is looking angrier by the moment, his eyes seeming a brighter blue than Bull remembers them.  Bull begins climbing up the stairs, his mind helpless to stop it’s identification of the space - contemporary, bland, and with the air of a house which is not lived in much.  He goes ahead of Anders, who follows him, treading heavily on the boards.  Bull hears the groan again and quickens his steps.  He has a choice of three doors on the landing at the top; one is half-open, showing a small, well-lit bathroom, one is shut, and the third is ajar slightly.  It is from this room that there comes another low groan, and a sob.  Bull steps over to door, pushing it open, eschewing any thought of propriety in his concern.  When he enters the room, he is alarmed to see no immediate sign of Dorian - the bed is unmade, sheets and blankets pulled over to one side; curtains drawn, turning the early afternoon light to ash.  “Dorian,” Anders says quietly from behind Bull, and begins to skirt around the side of the bed, then he breathes, “Ahh, fuck.  Dorian.”  He says the name more loudly, and goes to his hands and knees on the other side of the bed.  

 

Bull follows Anders’ path around the bed, and sees Dorian, lying half-unconscious with his head cradled on his forearm, legs tucked up under him.  He is wearing only a pair of pajama pants, sky-blue with a tiny stripe of darker blue, his feet and chest bare, his usually impeccable hair an utter shambles.  Anders’ hand is resting on his back, and the first thing that Bull sees is the tattoo over Dorian’s shoulder blades; a sword running the length of his back, from the tip of his right shoulder to the wing of his right hip, a ribbon streaming from the hilt, a chain wrapped around the blade.  Two of the chain links are broken, and the legend on the ribbon reads Nunquam Denuo.  “Dorian, holy shit, man, is this your dad, what did he say…” Anders says, all in a rush.  He pauses, and looks at Bull, growling low to him, “I think he’s just drunk, but check around for pill bottles, yeah?”  Bull nods, swiftly leaving the room, crossing the landing to the bathroom.  He scans the cupboard over the sink, looks everywhere he can think of for either the remnants of prescription drugs or anything else that might be affecting Dorian.  He hears Anders' sharp tones from the bedroom, and recrosses the landing, going around the bed again.  “Come on, sit up, tell me what he said.  I know you had a bit too much to drink. Did you take anything else?”  Dorian groans again, mutters something, and attempts to push up onto his hands and knees.  Anders catches him under the arms, pulls him upright, not as gently as Bull might have expected.  As Dorian’s head lolls forward, and his hands go up to his face, Anders looks around and up at Bull, who shakes his head and says quietly, “Can’t see anything in the bathroom.  You okay here for a moment?  I’ll take a look around downstairs.”  Anders nods; his eyes are almost bordering on rage now; Bull observes dispassionately that he’s definitely never seen Anders’ eyes this particular shade of blue.  Anders keeps his arm around Dorian’s shoulders, rubbing Dorian’s arm.  As Bull leaves the room, he hears Dorian say, “He wanted me to forgive him… oh Maker.” Then Dorian begins to sob, raking and unselfconscious gasps of sheer grief.  Bull clenches his jaw and keeps walking, taking the stairs two at a time.

 

++

 

He finds only empty bottles of alcohol, nothing to suggest that Dorian has taken anything else.  Even so, the amount of bottles he finds is alarming; if Dorian was trying to blot something out, he certainly tried hard.  Bull finds them everywhere too - there is no way to tell how much Dorian has consumed on this particular occasion.  Bull grimaces in annoyance, unable to help the snap judgement which rises to the surface of his mind, then blows out air and goes back upstairs.  


Anders has managed to get Dorian into a sitting position on the side of the bed, and Bull draws in breath when he sees the two of them sitting side by side, Dorian’s head on Anders’ shoulder, Anders’ arm around him.  His nostrils flare a little, then he clears his throat and Anders half turns so that Bull sees his face in profile.  “Nothin’ downstairs.  Nothin’ we didn’t know about already, anyway.”

“Thanks man.  Hey, can you sit with him for a bit?”  Anders sighs tensely and tells Bull, “I gotta check in with Al.  He’ll be outta his mind by now.  And I… I kinda gotta calm down myself, too.”  He wriggles a bit as Bull comes around the bed.  Dorian doesn’t look at him at all, barely seems to register when Anders slides his arm off his waist and kneels down in front of him, looking up into his face.  “Hey, I’m gonna go talk to Al real quick, then I’ll go sort something for how you’re feeling.  You know,” he grimaces quickly, “For your hangover at least.”  Dorian doesn’t reply, just continues staring at the floor, and Anders blows out a breath and rises.  He looks at Bull, shakes his head slightly, pulling his phone from his pocket as he does.  “I’ll be out for like, twenty minutes.  His fuckin’ dad,”  Anders clenches his jaw again, then takes a deep breath and looks at Bull, “I’ll go back to the shop and talk to Al, pick up a couple of things and come straight back.  Tell me your number.”  Bull does, puzzling at why Anders' voice should sound so hollow and strange, and Anders plugs it into his phone before confirming, “Twenty minutes.  He changes, anything changes, call me.  I’ll text you so you got my number.”

 

Bull sits on the edge of the bed, a good arm's length away from Dorian, who has been staring blankly into space during his conversation with Anders.  He hears the front door slam, and after a brief pause, the sound of Anders’ car pull out and away.  Bull’s phone vibrates in his pocket, but knowing that it is only Anders’ making sure that he has his number, he doesn’t check it.  There is silence for a long time before Dorian says grimly, “Came to see the whole display?”

 

Bull smiles a little, cheered by the sarcastic tone.  “No,” he says, “Came to see if I needed to find someone else to finish this tattoo.”

Dorian snorts, and holds his head, moaning, “Maker.  That’s not pleasant.”

“It never is,” Bull says, and bites back a comment along the lines of _neither is not letting anyone know what you were doing_ _._  Dorian seems to sense that’s what he means, however, because he raises his head gingerly from where it is cradled on his hands, and squints at Bull through his ruined eye make-up.  He shrugs, and says quietly, “I don’t need to justify my actions to you.”

“No, you don’t,” Bull says, just as quietly.  There is a moment more silence between them, and then Dorian drops his forehead back into his hands, and begins to speak, his voice muffled slightly.  “I had a visit from my father.  He… he came here, to Redcliffe, to see me.  He said he wanted my forgiveness, for me to come home, to Tevinter.”  He pauses, and breathes a laugh, shaking his head slightly in his hands, “There was no ambush, no kidnapping… but it wasn’t a warm family reunion, either.”

 

Bull stays silent, knowing that if Dorian wants to talk, he will.  After a few more moments silence, Dorian does continue, and his voice sounds slightly stronger.  “Actually, he hardly spoke at all, despite professing to want to talk to me.  I never gave him much of a chance.  I just felt like I was flinging all his old accusations back at him, trying to make him take them back by hearing how they sounded.  As if that were possible.”  He stops, sits up a little straighter and wraps his arms around himself, looking up at Bull.  Bull sees a Heart of Andraste tattooed on his chest; pierced by Hessarian’s sword, broken by Maferath’s betrayal, on fire with her love for the Maker.  There is a glyph high up on Dorian’s left shoulder, another, larger one low down on his hipbone.  “I remember it so clearly, what he said to me; called me deviant and shameful, professed himself disgusted at my aberrant behaviour.”  He blows out a shaky breath, runs a hand through his hair and lapses into silence once more.  Then he furrows his brow as he looks at Bull more intently than before to ask him, “What is it about you, Bull?  It seems I can't help but think of you as some sort of… I don’t know.  Repository for all my awful past.”

 

"Dorian, I don't mind. I..." Want to be is how he wants to finish the sentence, but he leaves the word hanging and Dorian's voice goes over the pause like he never heard Bull at all, saying, "I'm sorry. I really don't know what's come over me. It's like some horrible True Confessions thing."  He swallows, and shudders, his eyes roving about the room, then hunches over further and tells Bull, “I’m cold.”

 

Bull doesn’t say anything, just reaches backwards for the blankets, turning as he rises.  He pulls them in a handful off the end of the bed, then steps toward Dorian and stands in front of him to drape the blankets over his shoulders.  “Better?” Dorian nods.  Bull takes a step backwards to lean against the wall instead of going back to his perch on the bed. In all honesty, he feels weird being in Dorian’s bedroom like this, now that he knows Dorian is safe.  It seems… a step too far almost, like he’s overshot a boundary that he didn’t know had been established.  Dorian seems to feel the same way, because he rises, a little awkwardly with the blankets clutched around his shoulders, and looks as regally as he can through his smudged eye-makeup at Bull before saying, “Come on.  Make yourself useful and get me to the bathroom and down the stairs.”

 

After a visit to the bathroom, where he washes the smears of makeup off his face diligently, Dorian manages to sway his way down the stairs on his own.  He achieves this with no small degree of the graceful list of the practised drunk.  Bull hovers behind him, just in case, ready to catch Dorian’s arm.  He cannot help the remnants of annoyance which cling like tendrils of fog around his mind, wondering if Dorian knows the concern he has caused his friends, wonders if he would care if he did know. He tries not to think about it, but that only seems to make the irritation he feels worse.  

 

They reach the bottom of the stairs without incident.  Dorian begins fussing about in the kitchen, switches the kettle on and getting mugs out when Bull feels his phone vibrate again.  He pulls it out, skips over the first message of ‘its me anders’ to save the contact. He reads the second and snorts a laugh.  “Looks like you got a good buddy in Anders,” he tells Dorian, who looks around the side of an open cupboard at him and says, “Why?  Did he spin a wonderful fairy-tale for Al?  Oooh, Maker,” he whines, “Why am I the one doing this?  You could help an invalid out…”

“Not a self-inflicted invalid.  Sorry,”  Bull says, “that’s not part of my job description.  I’m strictly on ‘don’t let Dorian die’ duty.  But yeah, he must have done; look,” He shows Dorian the screen with Anders’ message: ‘Soz for dlay.  D stil alive? Al sez no probs, wil b ther in 10 with ELFROOT!!’  Dorian rolls his eyes and says, “He’s such a mother hen.  Ack… elfroot.  It tastes like the underside of a giant’s ballsack.”

Bull laughs, and says, “I’m not even going to ask how you know that.”

“Research, my good man, takes many forms.”  Dorian arches an eyebrow, then sighs.  “I must be sick.  I barely have the energy to sass.”  It’s only then that Bull notices how badly Dorian’s hands are shaking and his pallid complexion, and he walks around the counter and gently pushes Dorian out of the kitchen, saying “I can do this.”

“Oh, so _now_ you volunteer.”  Dorian tucks the blankets closer around his shoulders and shudders, rubs his brow.  “I’m going to sit down for a moment.”

 

As Dorian trails his blankets over to the kitchen table, Bull pours hot water into both the mugs; Dorian has already added tea-bags, and Bull smells a delicious lemony fragrance on the steam.  He carries the two mugs over to the table, careful to avoid the long train that Dorian is still pulling at, trying to arrange the blanket to cover him as closely as possible.  Bull thinks it might have been easier to find him a sweatshirt to wear.  He realises he can hardly imagine Dorian even owning a sweatshirt, so immaculate is his usual grooming; hard on the heels of this realisation is how difficult it must be for Dorian to appear in such a disheveled state in front of him.  He grins, and Dorian glowers at him over his mug of tea, then asks, “What’s so funny?”

“You.”

“I'm so delighted that I amuse you.  I ought to overindulge more often, if you find my state so very hilarious.”

Bull’s grin fades as the annoyance rears its head again, and he says, “You oughtta stop it, if you can’t control it.  The drinking, I mean.”

“Maker, Bull, I don’t need a lecture about my drinking, especially not from you.” Dorian clicks his tongue and rolls his eyes, “I’m already feeling repentant enough.  Anyway, I’m pretty sure I had extenuating circumstances yesterday.  And the day before.”  Dorian grins sheepishly, “And probably the day before that too.”

“Fuck that.” Bull says with more viciousness than he’d intended, “Your relationship with your dad isn’t worth killing yourself over.  Anything could have happened to you; you were here all by yourself.  Al was real worried about you, so was Anders.” _So was I_ he leaves unsaid, then continues, “Standing on your fucking pride over any of this won’t get you anywhere.”

 

Dorian frowns in an affronted way, and his mouth opens a tiny amount.  Then, the frown changes to a look of deep hurt, and his eyes slide off Bull’s face to the floor.  He blows out a breath.  Bull snorts and folds his arms across his chest.  Finally, after a long silence, Dorian shakes his head a little and says quietly, “Fuck you. I didn’t ask you to come here. You don’t know me.”

“I know enough to know that you’re worth more than you give yourself credit for.”  Bull clenches his jaw and makes his fists relax back into hands.  He takes a deep, steadying breath and says, “Yeah.  You’re right. I don’t know you.”  He tries to take a breath, get his hammering heart under control, but finds he can’t do it.  He smiles at Dorian without any trace of humour, and says, “You know what? It’s none of my business.”  He gets up and says, “You wanna drink yourself to death, go for it.  I’m out.”  He gets up, stalks to the front door, which swings open before he reaches it, revealing a grinning Anders.  

 

“The prodigal son has returned, bearing… oh, Bull!  Ah… is everything alright?”  Anders looks from Bull to Dorian, his expression shifting rapidly from sunny good humour to concerned confusion.  Bull pulls the door open further and grunts as Dorian says, not looking at either of them, “Fine.  Bull was just leaving.”

Anders looks at Bull, who has shouldered past him and is now halfway out the door, “Oh, ah, okay.  Um, do you need a lift…?”

“No.”  Bull says just the one word over his shoulder, and thrusts his hands into his pockets, walking away.

 

++

 

The storm breaks on his way back home.  There is the crash of thunder overhead and then the rain comes, sending steam into the air where it hits the hot tarmac.  Bull shakes the rain off his face, sending droplets flying.  He knows now that he should never have gone with Anders, it was a bad idea right from the start.  Hell, maybe the whole idea of this tattoo was just world-class stupidity on his part, that this is some cosmic retribution to make him acknowledge the fact.  He put his own lust for novelty, his self-aggrandizement ahead of his purpose, and has compromised his own sense of his understanding of his place within the Qun by his actions.  And what is the ‘vint to him anyway?  Just another self-indulgent dathrasi, a type all too common in Tevinter.  “Almost like they breed ‘em for export,” he mutters, and his nostrils flare as he snarls, wanting to hit something, anything, anyone.  Instead, he continues putting one foot in front of the other, hearing the wet slap of his boots on the pavement, feeling the sudden chill of the rain on his skin through his soaked shirt.  The fresh scent of the rain mingles with the stench of bitumen in his nose, unpleasant and chemical, a smell he always associates with the roadblock in Ahkaaz, the ambush there, how the Fog Warrior had screamed at him, words he didn’t understand at the time.  It was always hot and wet on Seheron, and to this day he cannot see a summer storm without the memories of that time rising unbidden behind his eyes.  He feels his phone vibrate again in his pocket, but ignores it, concentrating instead on one step, then the next, then the next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, it's all-angst-all-the-time from this point on, for a while at least. And another music reference for you: the song that Anders is singing in the car is 'I Am A Revenant', written by Brody Dalle, performed by the Distillers from the 2002 album 'Sing Sing Death House'.


	5. Chapter 5

Bull ignores his phone for three days, leaving a litany of missed calls and text messages listed on the home screen.  He concentrates instead on his meditations, rereads his battered copies of the  _ Teachings of Ashkaari Koslun _ and  _ The Trial _ _._  Every time he feels that old rage claw itself into his guts, he breathes deep, imagines the vice-like grip of the fingers inside him gradually losing their hold.  He doesn’t dwell on his mistakes, resolves to learn and move on.

 

Except in sleep.

 

His sleeping mind defies this edict - it shows him Dorian’s face, turned away, throws the hollow tone of his voice back into his ears when Dorian had said that he didn’t know him, said he’d never asked for Bull to come.  Shows him Dorian lying huddled on the floor beside his bed, weak, childish, lost.  It makes him hear Dorian’s sharp bark of laughter and the way his eyes glitter with suppressed mirth.  It shows him what might have been between them, in another time or age; grey skin on tan, a whispered want, heat.  And always the dragon, the image that Dorian had made for him blending in his mind with the dragon he had seen, the dull graze of the wounds the needles and their burden of ink had made in his flesh somehow blurring with the screaming cry of the beast itself.  He wakes from these dreams angry and desolate, not knowing in the instant of his waking that they are only dreams.  

 

On the fourth day, as he is walking home from the market with a few groceries, he hears his name.  He keeps walking, moderating his pace, wanting to quicken it.  He hears the shout again, and then someone hits him in the back of the thigh and he turns, scowling.  “Aw, shit,” Varric says, “Coulda lived without seeing that expression on a Qunari face ever again.  How you doing, Tiny?  Bad time?”

“You could say that.”  He looks down at Varric, quickly, then resumes walking.  Varric hustles alongside him, cranes his face up to look at Bull.  “Hey, come on,” Varric says, “Cut me some slack here, my legs aren’t as long as yours…”

“What do you want, Varric?” Bull stops, and Varric almost runs into him.  He sighs and grins apologetically and says, “Just wanted to see if… you know.  If you’re ever gonna come back.  Get that tat finished.”

“No.”  Bull looks at Varric solemnly and then shrugs, “It was a stupid idea in the first place.”

Varric just looks at him, confused, and Bull shrugs again and starts to walk away.  “Why?” he hears Varric say from behind him, and then the dwarf runs, hits Bull in the back of the leg again, and repeats his question, adding, “Can’t have been more stupid than going around with a half-finished dragon all over your chest.”

 

Bull crouches, ignoring the crack in his bad knee and the screeling pain it induces.  He growls very quietly, “Let’s get this straight Varric; you hit me in the leg again, I’ll take your fucking arm off.  You ask me another question, I’ll take your fucking head off.  How many more ways can I say leave me alone?”

Varric puts both his hands up at shoulder height, an expression of surprise on his face, “Whoa, Bull.  Peace.  I was just curious is all… We’ve been trying to get a hold of you, Anders and Al, and me.  And Dorian; he’s tried harder than anyone else.  He won’t tell anyone whatever went on between you guys, but you don’t have to be a genius to know he feels pretty shit about it.”  Varric puts his hands down, frowns up at Bull, “You don’t need to explain anything to me, I know that.  But if you want us to leave you alone about it, you gotta tell us.  You can’t just drop off the map.”  He shakes his head and sighs frustratedly, “Whatever.  I’ll tell Dorian.  You won’t hear from us again.  I’ll make sure of it.”  The dwarf turns on his heel and marches off, leaving Bull crouched in the middle of the pavement, the crowds surging around him.  

 

When he arrives home, he finally looks at his phone.  He scrolls down the list, noting the tone of the various texts from Anders changing from confusion to frustration, how as the calls from the studio begin to taper off in frequency, the calls from Dorian’s own number remain as frequent as ever.  He notes also that Dorian doesn’t text, only calls.  It is as he is wondering why that the phone begins to vibrate in his hand, showing him the name of the caller and the option buttons.  He mentally prepares himself and thumbs the green accept call icon.

 

“You answered.  Maker.”  A noisy swallow, and then, “Can I meet you somewhere?  I need to talk to you.”

“We’re talking now.  Say what you gotta say.”

“I’d really rather that we spoke in person, Bull.”  Dorian sighs and says, almost in a whisper, “I want to do this right, and it doesn’t seem right on the phone.”

Bull is silent; he doesn’t want to meet Dorian, because part of him wants to hold onto this anger, to use it as a shield for his faith.  And yet… and yet… “Okay,” Bull relents, and then tells Dorian, “I’ll be at the Gull in half an hour.  Can you make that?”

“Yes,” Dorian says quickly and then, “I’ll be there.”

 

++

 

The Gull and Lantern is busy for a Sunday, thrumming with people either in for a quick mid-afternoon drink on their way home from conducting their last few Sunday jobs, or catching up with friends.  Bull arrives earlier than the half an hour he’d stipulated to Dorian, walking along the pavement in the yellowing late afternoon light.  The sunlight arcs between the buildings, hitting the glass of the windows at just the right angle so that Bull has to narrow his eye against the sunstrike.  He turns into the entrance, looks around him for a free space that he might be able to watch the door, and sees Dorian instead, a tall glass of pale, cloudy liquid in front of him.  Bull feels the tension collect in the big muscles across his shoulders, and he grits his teeth, walking towards Dorian, who spots him and gets up immediately.  He walks the few remaining paces toward Bull.  Then he stops, and they stand  facing each other, an arms length apart.  Bull just stands there, staring at him, his breathing calm, his face unreadable.  Dorian sags and turns his eyes up to Bull’s face.  “I just wanted to say… that I’m sorry.  I know I acted appallingly, I spoke out of turn, and, and I just…” he sighs, breathes a little laugh and smiles ruefully.  “I was obviously a fool to think this would work.  I wanted to let you know that I can recommend some good artists to finish your piece, if you want that.  If you don’t, then… while I confess myself disappointed, I cannot, do not, blame you at all.”  Dorian looks away, shifts from foot to foot and revolves his right wrist absent-mindedly, then looks at Bull again.  “That’s all I wanted to say.”

 

Bull just keeps looking steadily at Dorian.  He watches the human closely, as Dorian drops his eyes again and fidgets, occasionally glancing back up at Bull, only to glance away again just as swiftly.  Eventually, Bull can see that the frustration of his approach is beginning to needle Dorian too insistently, but he keeps on just looking until Dorian hisses, “Are you going to say anything?”

Bull curls one side of his mouth up, just a little, and says with a raise of his eyebrows, “It’s a nice evening out.  Let’s walk.”  He turns and strides off, not sure if Dorian will follow, thinking that his decision will be made on this whole affair in the next few minutes of conversation. Dorian still exerts an almost disturbing physical pull on him, but he can bottle away his desires - he’s done it in the past.  He pushes the door to the tavern open, not bothering to hold it, and walks out onto the street where he pauses for a moment, breathing in the stink of the exhaust from the nearby road, noting how it blends with the faint, heady scent of the bouquet of crystal grace and vandal aria that a woman is carrying past him.  She looks happy, in love, as she walks home with the blooms, blue and white, held tenderly in her arms like something precious.  Bull smiles a little and watches her, then feels Dorian’s presence by his side and starts to walk.

 

++

 

They walk in silence for a block, away from the centre of the city and the lake, uphill to where Redcliffe castle still sits, imposing and dour.  Side by side, Bull slowing his pace so that Dorian doesn’t have to hurry to keep up, they walk, seeming aimless.  Suddenly, Bull says to Dorian, “I meant it, you know.”

“Meant… what, sorry?”

Bull smiles a little at Dorian’s feigned confusion.  “All of it.  The part about you being worth more than another life ruined in the pursuit of misery.  About how your pride and your self-pity are the only things stopping you from reaching out.  About how I wasn’t going to sit around to listen to it.”  He thrusts his hands deeper into his pockets, shrugs without looking at Dorian.  He can’t see Dorian at all, since he’s walking on his blind side, but he knows he’s there.  “I’m not here to be kind to you, Dorian.  But don’t think that that means that I… you know.  That I don’t think you’re pretty great.”

“‘Pretty great’,”  Dorian repeats, his voice all the indication that Bull needs that there is an eye-roll happening, “High praise indeed.”

“It is, you know, given the fact that I barely know you.  You were right about that, at least.  But what I’ve seen so far, I mostly like.  I want to see more.  I just don’t want to see you dragging around this... _ millstone _ _,_ and I sure don’t want to see that mind of yours broken with guilt or shame that you never earned.  I can’t watch you do that.  I have a talent for triage, but it's never my preferred option - I’m more of a prevention kind of guy.”  Bull half-turns towards Dorian, but he is walking too far back to enable Bull to get a look at his face without completely stopping, so he turns back to face the pavement in front of him.  “And, I mean, you don’t know me, either.  But,” Bull shakes his head, “There’s something about you, Dorian.  You intrigue me.”

 

They keep walking, off of the main thoroughfare now.  The crowds have thinned out considerably, and eventually they reach a small inner-city park, just a few stunted trees and a small grassy area with a couple of bench seats scrawled with graffiti.  Bull pushes the low wrought iron gate open, noting that Dorian has completely missed a golden opportunity to either preen or jibe.  Bull stands, hands in pockets still, pretending to read the plaque that states that this was where the old mill had stood, torn down and converted to a memorial park for those Redcliffers who lost their lives when the town, as it was then, was attacked during the Fifth Blight.  He turns his body in such a way that Dorian will have to come around to his good side, because he wants to see the expression on Dorian’s face, to guess at what he might be thinking.  Dorian obliges him, and stands facing the plaque also, so Bull can observe him, at least in profile.  His face is genuinely puzzled, his eyes downcast, one hand upraised to his chin, the other folded across his chest.  Then Dorian frowns a little, glancing at Bull from the corner of his eye, and then says, in a falsely cheery tone, “Feel free to correct me if I’ve misread this… but… is this about more than just a tattoo?”

 

Bull reads a whole lot of apprehension under Dorian’s voice, and he replies in a tone which is just as loaded, “It’s about the tattoo.  For now.”

“For now,” Dorian repeats slowly, and sighs.  “Be mysterious then.”  He looks at Bull then, and grins, a little nervously, “Does that mean you’ll come back?  I can finish your dragon?”

Bull hesitates then, just long enough for Dorian to begin to look crestfallen.  “Yeah,” Bull says slowly, and Dorian’s face immediately brightens.  “I gotta say, it’s not without reservations.  But,” he shrugs, “Like the man says, ‘I am in blood, stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o'er.’”

“Maker, talk about intriguing.  I never thought I’d live to see the day where I’d have a Qunari quoting MacBeth at me.”

Bull laughs then, his usual rumbling, and Dorian looks up at him, a wry smile twisting his lips.  He continues smiling as he asks, “What are these reservations, if you don’t mind me asking?”

 

Bull purses his lips, folds his arms across his chest.  As the sun sinks lower on the horizon, it has cast the entirety of the park in shadow, and the day cools considerably fast despite the summer heat when you get this far south.  He tries to frame a way in which to tell Dorian about the struggle that he’s had over the last few days, indeed, ever since he thought about getting this particular tattoo, and all he can come up with is “How much do you know about the Qun?”

Dorian raises an eyebrow and tells him, “I believe the technical term is ‘bugger all’.”

“Yup, that’s a pretty standard response.”  He sighs, and says, “You remember, when you were asking me about vitaar, how I said we, Qunari, don’t have anything that’s just pretty?”  Dorian nods, and Bull smiles, looks at him quickly then away again.  “I happen to like pretty.  I don’t know if it’s just something in me, or if…” he swallows, “If maybe I’ve been away too long, or maybe my faith isn’t strong enough.  I mean, there’s nothing that I know of in the Law which says,  _ don’t have pretty things _ _,_ but it’s just… if there’s no purpose… what’s the point?”  Bull looks down at his feet, feels the way his breathing has changed, bordering on panic.  He tells Dorian quietly, “I feel, I have felt, like this tattoo is the beginning of the end.  I won’t be made Tal-Vashoth for it… but…”  The word hangs in the cooling air, and sirens arc away into the growing darkness, marring the quiet.  Bull rallies himself, clears his throat and continues, “Perhaps it’s symptomatic of my failure.  Perhaps I need to get myself reeducated.”

“Maker, dare I ask?  What is that?  Reeducation?”

“Reeducation… it’s… uh, a process where your purpose under the Qun is redefined, you’re kind of… made whole again, I guess.  Made part of society, part of the body - like when you pick a scab and there’s new skin underneath.”

Dorian’s mouth crinkles strangely, and he makes a worried face at Bull, before saying, “Scabs don’t get made without some degree of injury, I seem to recall.”

Bull just nods.  There’s no denying that submitting to the Ben-Hassrath is an extreme option, one which would see him lose most of that which he values.  But then, isn’t that a symptom of his fall from purpose as well?  That he’s putting his own wants and desires over that which is best for the whole?  He clenches his fists, feels helplessness boil up within him, and then he’s turning to Dorian, telling him, “I don’t know.  I don’t know.  Fuck, I hate this, this useless guilt, all these fucking questions.  Let’s just go, go anywhere.  Walk with me?”

Dorian snorts, and smiles slightly, then raises an eyebrow at Bull.  He nods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! It's a two-fer kind of day! Actually, I'm posting this now because I'm not sure if I'll be able to post tomorrow, but if I can, then you'll get a two-fer.


	6. Chapter 6

Back at the Gull and Lantern, and Bull’s head feels heavier than usual.  He’s been watching Dorian’s hands as they flit and mould the air, seeking to make his words more physical, to craft a solidity from mere opinion.  He watches the slide of Dorian’s tongue inside his mouth as he speaks, the bite of teeth against _T_ sounds, the chaste kiss of stop and release.  He watches the hitch of Dorian’s Adam’s apple as he swallows from the glass in front of him, and the marks in the condensation on the side of the glass that his fingers leave.  Dorian is nursing his drink, the ice long since melted.  It’s not that he’s made a big deal of it, but Bull is trained to notice everything.  And what’s more, he finds the subject of Dorian is beyond fascinating to him.  He feels drawn in, consumed by his fascination.  A little out of control with it.  

“Bull?  Bull.  Hello? Earth to Bull…”

Bull shakes his head slowly, and focuses on Dorian’s face.  Dorian smiles at him, and tilts his head, half closing one eye suspiciously, and asks, “Did you nod off, poor thing?  Is it past the little calf’s bedtime?”

“Vashedan, it’s been awhile since I’ve been a calf.”  He shifts his hand out from under his chin, and rests it over the top of his other arm.  “I guess it is getting late though.”

Dorian looks to the clock over the bar and then rolls his eyes to say, “Scarcely ten!  You _are_ an old man.”  He grins at Bull and points his index finger at him, still squinting, then says, “You know, I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you speak Qunlat.”

Bull laughs, “Yeah.  We have all the best swear words.”

“Funny how we all revert to the mother tongue for cursing.  I still think there’s nothing like _vishante kaffas_ _._ ”  Dorian looks at the wall, musing.  “Maybe it’s because the circumstances… surprise a word out of us, if you like.  Something I wonder about is the language in which people think.  I haven’t been around southerners long enough I suppose; I mean, I still think in Tevene.  Despite having this,” he laughs and points to the script on the underside of his left arm, a cursive font reading _Stay True_ in Common. “But Cassandra says she thinks in a mixture of Nevarran and Common, Fenris just growled at me when I asked him, but Hawke said he’s a polyglot, so Maker knows.”  He pauses, distracted, and then looks at Bull to ask, “What was I talking about?”

“Languages. Thinking.”

“Oh yes.  Um.  Yes.  Was that all I had to say about that?”

 

Bull grins and frowns, “I don’t know.  Were you going to ask me how I think?”  He doesn’t wait for a reply from Dorian before continuing, “It depends.  On the situation.  I don’t know a lot of people who understand Qunlat, so I don’t speak it much; it’s just an aggressive sound to a lot of people down here.  Don’t need to scare the natives any more than I already do.”  He snorts derisively, and then tells Dorian, “I guess I’m the same as Cassandra though; a little of each of the languages I’ve been around.”

“Fascinating.  The mind.”  Dorian takes another drink, and as he’s putting his glass onto the coaster, he asks, “And do you find there are situations that predispose themselves to one language or another?”

“Yeah,” Bull replies, and rubs the bridge of his nose absentmindedly, before saying, “When I’m talking in Common, I’m thinking in Common, mostly - means I don’t have to translate my thoughts.  Same as with Orlesian.  I don’t know enough Rivani or Tevene for either of them to count.  But...you know, visceral situations, it’s Qunlat.  The mother tongue, like you said.”

“Visceral situations?”

Bull smirks, “Fighting and fucking, Dorian.”

“Oh.  Visceral.  I see.”  They lapse into silence, and Bull takes the opportunity to finish his drink.  He rubs his hands together and says quietly, seriously, “Hey, thanks for this.  It was pretty brave of you; you coulda just let it go, chalked it up to experience.  But you didn’t.  That says a lot about you.”

“It says that I’m stubborn.”

Bull chuckles a little and raises an eyebrow as he shrugs, acknowledging Dorian’s point.  “Well, yeah, I guess.  But it also says you’re courageous.  That's a good thing.”

Dorian grins, then rolls his eyes and flaps his hand at Bull, “Oh, stop, you.”  The grin broadens and he says, “Actually, no, I could stand to hear a bit more of that.”

Bull laughs, a proper deep bellow, “And modest, did I forget that one?”  He shakes his head, begins to rise.  “Compliments will keep.  I gotta get going.  My knee goes weird if I sit still for too long.  Want me to come by the shop, make another appointment?”

 

But Dorian is rising too, quickly finishing his drink as he does.  “Wait,” he says, and coughs, having swallowed the drink too quickly, his hand coming up over his mouth.  He pauses momentarily, and Bull just looks at him, before Dorian puts his hand down and says, “I’ll walk with you.  We’re going in the same direction.”

Bull raises his eyebrow slightly, since he hadn’t told Dorian which direction he was going in.  But he doesn’t say anything as Dorian slides awkwardly off the banquette seating, out from behind the table and rises.  “Okay, sure” he says slowly, and his eye narrows slightly, looking at Dorian, knowing where this will lead.

 

++

 

The night air is still and silent as they walk, up the hill from the Gull and into one of the divier parts of Redcliffe City.  The sickle moon glows pinkly, riding high above the hills and cliffs on which the outer suburbs squat, most of the stars almost invisible with the light pollution over the city.  Dorian walks quickly next to Bull, with all the air of a man who doesn’t know if he is walking to an earthly paradise or the gallows.  “Hey, Dorian,” Bull says softly, and Dorian looks at him, a grimace of determination on his face.  “Dorian,” Bull says again, “Are you really headed this way?”

 

“Of course!”  Dorian blusters, frowning at Bull, “Did you think this was just some ruse to spend more time in your company?” He looks at Bull and sneers, “My, we do flatter ourselves.”  Bull shakes his head a little and grins, “Just wondering.”

“Well, wonder no more.”  Dorian lifts his chin haughtily, taking a deep breath in, and then starts when Bull asks, “So, you don’t wanna come up then?”

 

Dorian, for an instant, looks flustered.  Bull cannot help himself, he chuckles just a little, and the noise of it seems to recall Dorian to his self-confidence.  He looks at Bull and shrugs, but there is something not in the gesture itself but in the way his lips are set together, and the too-challenging stare that makes Bull believe that Dorian would do it to prove a point, rather than because he really wants to.  He chuckles again to hide his disappointment, and then reaches down to clutch Dorian’s hand.  There is an instant of resistance, and then Dorian allows Bull to guide him to the entrance of a small block of flats, not more than six stories high, grey and brutalist.  “I’m just offering,” Bull says again, his tone of voice low and smooth, as he pulls Dorian closer, feeling the resistance slacken, “Whatever it is that you need.  And hey,” he says, his voice lightening, “if all you need is tea, then that’s okay too.  But in any case, this is my stop.”  Dorian mutters something, his gaze averted, and Bull gives his captive hand a squeeze and says, “Didn’t catch that.”  Dorian looks directly at Bull then, and his eyes are almost fierce as he repeats, “Tea then.  Yes.”

 

Dorian is unnaturally quiet as they climb the stairs up to the second level, where Bull’s apartment is.  He is quiet still, brooding almost, as Bull unlocks the door and holds it open for Dorian so that he might enter.  Bull has left the apartment much as he received it - like Dorian, he is not sure how long he will be here for.  So the little flat is spartan at best, not even contemporary-sparse like Dorian’s townhouse; no pictures on the walls, no rugs on the bare floorboards.  Dorian stands awkwardly inside the entrance way, looking around him, from the books piled along one wall to the threadbare sofa, the neat yet shabby things that Bull has pulled around himself for the duration.  Bull walks past Dorian, goes right into the little kitchenette, and Dorian, after a moment’s hesitation, follows.  He watches, his face a mask of guardedness, as Bull tips water from the kettle down the sink, then refills it and places it on the stove, flipping the element underneath it on.  While he is doing this, Dorian picks up a pen from the benchtop and begins to twirl it over his fingers in a restless, jittery circle.  Bull watches him for a moment, then asks, “Nervous?”

 

“No,” Dorian replies, and drops the pen.  As he bends to pick it up, he asks, “What was your charming phrase?  This isn’t my first rodeo?”  He rises, and the challenging look is back, along with a slight sneer, “I hope you’re under no misapprehensions as to my virginity.”

Bull laughs at that and shakes his head.  “So this is more than just tea.”  He laughs again, and fishes on a nearby shelf for a couple of teacups.  He then retrieves the teapot and a box of leaf tea.  As he pulls the whistling kettle from the stovetop and pours a little boiling water into the pot and the teacups to warm them, he tells Dorian, “You don’t need inexperience to be nervous.  Nervous is fine, but you don’t need to be afraid.”  Then Bull shrugs, turning his attention to Dorian for a moment, looking at him levelly.  He listens to the silence for a moment, doesn’t catch a tell tale hitch of breath or any kind of movement which would indicate that he’s got an accurate read on Dorian’s desire.  So he shrugs again and says, “Every time with someone new is a first time.”

“Hmpf,” Dorian snorts and looks away for a moment, his expression arch, “That attitude would preclude casual encounters, I’d imagine.”  But Bull shakes his head as he spoons tea leaves into the pot; then he reconsiders slightly and revises, “I guess it would depend on your definition of casual.  You can have a casual sex thing with a friend, but I always think a little nerves are a good thing, makes you more aware, less complacent.”  

Dorian merely rolls his eyes and says nothing.  Bull watches him closely as they wait for the tea to steep, and he notices that the pen is gone.  He frowns quickly, wondering where Dorian has put it, but decides it makes no matter.

 

It is as Bull is pouring the tea that Dorian finally gets sick of the silence and asks, “So… what do you want?”

Bull breathes a small laugh, and says, “If we’re going to do this, the only thing that I want is for you to have a watchword.”  Dorian raises an eyebrow and accepts his cup from Bull.  He breathes in, takes a sip, then says, “Rather begs the question of exactly what you have planned.”  Bull laughs again and raises both of his hands to shoulder height, palms facing Dorian, “Nope; no plans.”  He looks at Dorian for a moment, appraisingly, and then clears his throat, as he wonders how Dorian will respond, “I grew up learning to manipulate people.  It was part of my training.  When it’s a hostile target, you give them what they want.  When it’s someone you care about, you give them what they need.  You see the difference?”

“So which am I?  A hostile, or a…” Dorian grins, showing all his teeth, “ _friendly_ _?_ ”  He sets his teacup down, slowly and deliberately, then takes a step closer to Bull.  “Are you going to give me what I tell you I want, even if you don’t believe me, or just assume what it is that I need?”  

“You need the opportunity to take a free pass, if you want it.”  Bull smirks down at Dorian’s upturned face, sees how piqued Dorian is by his avoidance of the question, “You say the word, we stop whatever is happening, no harm, no foul.  You don’t have to give a reason.  I’d suggest katoh,” he chuckles, “Can’t see you being the type of guy to say anything in Qunlat when you’re in the throes.”

Dorian looks at Bull suspiciously, then repeats the word before asking, “What does it mean?”

“Meaning’s not important.  Remembering is. Say it again for me.”

Dorian obliges, and then asks, “Are you having one too?  A watchword?”

Bull grins a little at that, then flexes the muscles in his arms and chest, “Do you think I’ll need one?”

 

Dorian laughs outright at the display, and then raises a hand, palm out, towards Bull.  “It only seems fair that you should have the same sense of safety that you’re trying to give me.  You’re stronger than I am, but...” and suddenly the fingers on the hand glow orange, flames licking around them, then he closes his fist and the flames are gone, “I can do magic.”  Bull narrows his eye and his nostrils flare at the sudden scent of ash; something in the back of his mind whispers the word _bas-sarebaas_ _._  After a moment, he nods and growls, "What would you suggest? Nothing obvious..."

Dorian pauses for a moment, then looks at Bull quizzically and suggests, "What about ‘Asariel’?"

"Asariel," Bull repeats and then nods again thoughtfully. It has a lovely sound, this word, and although it seems vaguely familiar, he cannot place a context around it.  He says it again, just for the pure feeling of the word in his mouth,and Dorian’s lips pull sideways and he huffs out a breath.  “Nothing could make me stop faster than that.”

“Fair enough,” Bull smiles gently, and then takes a step toward Dorian, arm outstretched.  His fingers curl into the waistband of Dorian’s chinos, bunching the fabric, and he uses this to pull Dorian’s hips closer to him.  “No harm, no foul,” he rumbles softly, “Just say the word.”

“Stop telling me how to get out of this, please.”  Dorian sighs, and turns his face up to look at Bull, his eyes curious and somehow mocking.  His lips part and he pulls the lower lip into his mouth, biting on it as he continues to study Bull.  As he runs his hands over the musculature that joins Bull’s arm and his shoulder, he asks again, slowly, “What is it that you want, Bull?  I can never seem to fathom you out.”

 

Bull doesn’t answer, just steps a little closer to bend towards Dorian, kissing him slowly, certainly, like he has all the time in the world.  Because that’s it, isn’t it?  That’s all he wants, such a simple thing, this moment, Dorian pressed against him, wanting to be there, wanting him, is all he really wants.  And oh, how he wants, desperately, grasping at every sensory detail, filling his mind up with the moment, filing everything away; touch of cotton and the sound of the kiss, increasing hunger, scent of burning, feel of teeth and hair, blood, swell of heartbeat.  As the wanting overwhelms him, it is ridden by another, darkling thing, a need so long suppressed that Bull has learnt to hate and love it at the same time.  In the mere moments of their kiss, there is an almost tangible desire welling in Bull; as Dorian continues to caress the muscles in his shoulders, just running fingertips along them, the light touch eliciting a delicious shiver, he almost loses control entirely, succumbing to a sudden vision that the thing within him sends his mind - how Dorian’s face would look, contorted with terror; how it would make all the muscles in his body tighten, how beautiful it would be to make him come in spite of his fear.  Bull breaks the kiss.  He steps backward, panting, suddenly afraid and guilty, and mutters, “Wait.”

 

Dorian takes a step forward, hands still held around the air where Bull had stood.  Then he hears the word Bull has said, and his eyebrows arch in surprise.  He tilts his head a little, and smirks, narrowing his eyes at Bull.  “Wait for what?” he purrs, still smirking, and takes another half step into Bull’s space, smoothing warm hands along Bull’s forearms.  He looks up at Bull more intently than before, considering, and then asks him, “What are you worried about?”  When Bull doesn’t answer immediately, Dorian tells him, “Not that you should take this as a challenge, but I’m harder to break than I look.  And I’ve got my verbal safety net.”  He steps full against Bull’s body, and Bull is powerless to resist the urge to wrap his hands around Dorian’s waist once more, to tangle his fingers into the cream coloured drill.  “I trust you, Bull,” Dorian mutters against him, like he is sharing a secret, then quantifies, “For tonight, I trust you.”  Bull sighs into the top of Dorian’s head, hair tickling his nose and says, “Come with me.”

 

++

 

        darkness, still dark, still and sweating.  Bull blinks rapidly into it, smells the smoke and

 

                cries out.  Sighs, then mutters, “Again.”  It’s hot, wet like the jungle he remembers, but

 

“...can’t.  No, oh, yes, pleaseplease, please…”                bites down, harder than he thought he would, but it’s all just swimming haze now as    he        thrusts, harderharder into the soft, dense flesh that feels like no home he’s ever knew, but he knows,       oh, he knows and

                             _**soft** _

                                                               sliding; silence for a time, just the tha-thud//tha-thud//tha-thud// of

                                                                                                                                                                    Dorian’s heart inside his chest.  Ink under skin, patterns from fable and blood, markers of pain and

 

                                “...that.  Oh, oh Maker, yes, thattherefuck, futuo induitur me, ah, ita bonum sentiens…”

    so warm - no - so hot _hot_ it glows with it, glows white in the darkness behind his eye, and he opens it to see the crackling blueness coming from his fingertips, and then, skin on sliding skin, and it just

just

 

    it just

 

++

 

                                    dark again.  Bull runs his hand down the velvet of Dorian’s side, feels the ridges of his ribs rise and fall gently with his breathing.  The world feels dead around him, narrowed down as it is to the breath entering and leaving Dorian’s body.  The deep morning is blue black outside the window, but who cares for that, when here is perfection, here is the world.

 

When he awakes again, there is a warmness wrapped into his side.  Then the… whatever it is… shifts, sits up in the bed, and Bull realises that he can see the outline of his desk lamp through what at first look is Dorian’s face.  “What the fuck?” he says, sitting up too quickly, pulling the blankets up and off himself, and the Dorian-shaped-thing looks at him and smiles and says, in Dorian’s voice, “I’m sorry, Bull.  I’m just a simulacra; an after image.  Dorian has gone.  Saves the awkwardness… or...not really.  I’m sorry,” the simulacra repeats, an expression of genuine concern on its face, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”  Bull is silent, his breathing still rapid.  The simulacra says, “Thank you.  For last night.  I hope you’ll come back to get your tattoo finished; if you still want to, why don’t you come by the shop sometime?  I hope you will.”  Bull notices that the simulacra has started to fade, and through the abatement of his initial shock, he is impressed at such a remarkable piece of magic.  “I hope you will,” the simulacra repeats in a whisper this time, and then smiles, Dorian’s smile, so that Bull cannot help but smile back, and then it is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aw, lookit, you got a two-fer. Only because you darlings are all gems! xx


	7. Chapter 7

“Andraste’s holy bosom, look who it is!  Dragon man!” Al yelps, looking up from whatever it is playing on the screen of the phone Hawke is holding out, showing something to the group clustered around him.  “Hello, Bull,” Dorian smiles, and although his smile is real enough, his eyes are guarded, wary almost.  Bull smiles back warmly, and shrugs at him very slightly, trying to show both that he will not say anything out of turn and that there are no hard feelings about Dorian skipping out.  “Come here, you’ve got to see this,” Dorian says, and there is the sound of an almighty CRASH!, the bellow of a giant and a peal of electronic whooping from the phone.  “Aw, guys!  You missed the best bit,” Hawke complains, then pulls the slider back to replay the clip.

 

Bull sidles up behind Dorian and looks down at the phone in Hawke’s hand.  He watches the screen as a shaky Youtube clip plays, of a young man laughing, more laughter in the background as he runs away from a giant, wearing what could best be described as a plush squirrel costume.  There is a female elven mage holding the giant back with some kind of electric cage, but the opportunity is too good to miss, because she allows the giant a moment’s freedom from it, and it captures the young man by the furry tail of his costume.  The giant tosses the man in the air, there is a moment of silence on the video, as the man lands in a nearby tree with a loud crashing noise.  The giant bellows as the mage captures it again in the cage, and the onlookers holler in amusement and relief as the camera pans up and refocuses to show the young man in the squirrel costume waving happily from the branch of a tree.  “Horns up!” he yells to the crowd, hands held aloft in the metal hand sign.  Hawke turns the phone back around to face him, and says, grinning hugely, “Fuck, I love those guys.”

Anders shakes his head in bemusement, and Al says, “It’s a wonder none of them have died, really.  That Krem is fearless.”

“I believe the word you want is _mental_ _,_ Al,” Dorian says, and Hawke nods and says, “Yeah, they all are.  The Chargers,” he grins, “madder than a sackful of Kirkwall Templars.”

“I work with them...” Bull says, and the group all turn surprised expressions on him.  Anders says, “Does that mean you know Krem?   _The_ Krem de la Creme?”

Bull laughs and says, “Yeah, that’s him!  Cremisius…”

“Aclassi,” Anders, Hawke and Al all say together, then laugh in astonishment.  “You are too cool, Bull,” Al says in amazement, and Bull shrugs and says, “Well, we work together.  He’s fearless and smart, a good combination.  Work with her too, the mage; Dalish, we call her.”

“Is she an apostate?” Anders asks, and Bull shakes his head and grins, “Nah, she’s an archer.”  Anders frowns, opens his mouth as if he’s about to ask a question, but Hawke cuts him off to say, “Come on, babe, we gotta get going.  Aveline scares me when we’re late.”

Anders looks mournful, “She scares me all the time.  Can’t you just go, love?" He looks pleadingly at Hawke, and Bull can see the other man falter for a second, then Anders continues, "She’s gonna make me hold the baby again.  It hates me.”

Hawke snorts with laughter, “Because you insisted on reciting your manifesto to it!  You got that baby all riled up on rights for the magic enabled,” he laughs again, “And thus you should reap the whirlwind.  Or get puked on, either way.”  He takes Anders hand and drags him over to the door, saying “Now come on, otherwise she’ll blame us for Donnic’s gross burned turnips.  Again.”

 

After Anders and Hawke have departed, Al stands next to Dorian as Dorian fusses about trying to find another appointment for Bull.  “Mr Popularity,” Al laughs, and then his eyes slide past Bull, his face falling and he breathes, “Shitfuckshitshit,I’mnothere,I’mnothere,” retreating rapidly into his office and closing the door behind him.  A moment later, a tall, dark-haired woman enters, dressed casual-corporate, her low-cut blouse and purple, slim cut jacket accenting her sharp features and golden coloured eyes.  She smiles at Dorian like he is something to eat, and purrs, “Is Alistair available?”

“No, I’m sorry, you’ve just missed him,” Dorian tells her smoothly, and Bull is impressed with the confidence that the lie is told with.  “Can I help you with something?  Maybe you’d like to leave a message for him?”

“Could you tell me when he might be back?”

“I don’t know, dreadfully sorry.  Probably not today, at least.  I really couldn’t say.”

“That’s… disappointing,” the woman sighs, then pulls a large, stiff looking envelope from her capacious handbag.  “Could you make sure he gets these?”

 

She holds out the envelope to Dorian, but pulls it out of his reach when he goes to take it, and says in a voice which is part velvet, part steel, “This is _very_ important.”

“Alright,” Dorian says in a carefully neutral tone, one that Bull can tell is deliberately squashing all manner of retorts, “I’ll be _very_ careful with it.”

 

“I should probably just come back later,” the woman muses, and Bull feels Dorian tense beside him, so he cuts in with, “Either leave them or don’t, lady.  Got anything more to say?” Wordlessly, the woman hands the envelope to Dorian, though she is looking at Bull when she says, “Make sure Alistair gets these.  I’ll know if he doesn’t.”  With that statement, she turns and sweeps regally from the room, high heels clicking against the linoleum floor.  Dorian glowers after her for a moment, then hefts the envelope in his hand, looking at it carefully.  “Irving, Orsino, de Fer, and Associates,” he reads aloud from the logo stamped in the top left corner.  “Sounds like lawyers or accountants to me.  Not a good sign, either way.”

“What do you think it is?”

“Nothing I want to know about.  But reading between the lines…”  Dorian sighs and looks at Bull, pursing his lips for a second, “Nothing good, that’s for certain.”  He walks to Al’s closed office door and taps gently on it.  Al opens it a fraction, and Dorian tells him, “She’s gone, Al.”

 

“Thank the Maker for that.”  Al opens the door a little wider, and Dorian hands him the envelope the woman had left for him.  Al takes it, looks at it for a second, and all of a sudden looks as if he is about to cry.  “Oh, Andraste,” is all he can manage, still staring at the envelope.  “All I want is to see him.”  He shakes his head, swallows, then crushes the envelope in his fist.  A small noise escapes him and he turns abruptly and kicks the door closed with such a slam it makes the wall shiver.  Fenris looks over at them for a moment, then goes back to finishing up the colouring on the crows wings on the arm of a blond elf with two lines tattooed under his eye, along his cheekbone.  “Rough day, the boss?” this elf enquires, and Fenris nods.  “Rough month, I think,” he tells the other elf, and huffs out a breath.  Dorian turns from the door, his face shocked, and calls over to Fenris, “Have you ever seen Al like that before?”

Fenris shakes his head, and pulls his gun away from the elf’s arm. “No,” he says, and sighs.  He shakes his head again, “The mess people make of their lives with love.”

The elf he is tattooing laughs uproariously, and Dorian and Bull exchange a surprised look.  “Ah, my friend,” the elf says, “But what a beautiful mess, no?  What would our lives be without love?”

“Easier,” Fenris tells him and the elf laughs again and corrects Fenris, “You mean, more dreary.  Less singing, less dancing, less drinking and much, much less sex.  Sounds positively boring to me.”

“I hate to say it, Fenris, but I agree with this guy,” Dorian quips, then turns to Bull to say, “Look, this is getting ridiculous.  If we try to do this in the hours that the studio is officially open, you’ll be waiting until Wintersend.  We could start… uh…” He looks down at the ledger again and says, “Tomorrow, at seven? Al shuts up shop at seven during the week.”

“Sure,” Bull says, then asks in an undertone, “You want to catch a bite before then?”  Dorian doesn’t look up from tapping the appointment into his phone, and Bull almost thinks he hasn’t heard when Dorian replies in a sing-song tone, “No, thank you.”

“Alright,” Bull shrugs, assuming that for Dorian, the night they’d spent together was curiosity, nothing more, and he does not wish to be pursued for anything deeper.  Bull shrugs off the clench of disappointment, but then Dorian glances at him, and all Bull reads in that swift look is fear; of what exactly, Bull couldn’t say.

 

++

 

When he returns to his building, there is an elf waiting outside.  Initially, Bull glances over him without registering and then he does a double-take and says, “Gatt!  Vashedan, when did they let you back out in the wild?”

“Hissrad,” Gatt nods, and smirks at him, “Nice to see you haven’t gone completely native.  Not yet, anyway.”

“Yeah, well,” Bull grins, “I haven’t gone native where it counts.”

Gatt says nothing to this, just smiles rather cryptically and then tells Bull, “Got word for you.”  Bull knows better than to ask what happened to his usual guy - either way, he won’t like the answer.  So he waits for Gatt to speak, expecting him to say that his status has been withdrawn or his assignment is completed.  Instead, Gatt tells him, “Rules are changing.  Can we talk?”  And with those words, Bull crushes a sudden bloom of apprehension and leads Gatt inside.

 

After Gatt has outlined the new assignment, he asks if Bull has any questions.  “Yeah,” Bull says, his voice soft, serious, “Why use the Chargers?  They’re not exactly subtle.  Or part of general ops.”

“They trust you, Hissrad.  They’re a good team.  And they know how to take orders, despite everything we’ve seen on Youtube.”

Bull laughs a little at that, and then guesses the real reason is to do with the mixed nature of the group; if they are caught, it will be easy for the Qun to deny its involvement, if there is only one Qunari present.  Bull figures that, should the mission fail, and end in capture or death, he will be presented as a Tal-Vashoth.  Diplomatic relations with Tevinter are at their worst point since the Llomeryn Accords, so any action against the nation has to look, at least on the surface, like the work of rogue operators.  Still, there is an element of uncertainty around the edges here, a feeling in his gut that Bull has learnt to ignore at his peril.  So he says to Gatt, “And what about…”

“Hissrad, that’s the assignment.  You want more information, you’ll have to find it on the fly.  We’re working under time pressure; the shipment will be delivered at 2330, according to the information we have.  Enemy agents will gather at 2100.  Your location documents and anything else which is authorised,” Gatt lays particular stress on the word, “will be in the usual place.  In the end, all we care about is stopping this stuff from getting to its final destination.  I suggest you gather your people and get to it.”  Bull keeps his face impassive and nods, but still can’t shake that uncertain feeling.  Gatt gets up, telling Bull, “You’ll be shipping out at 0500.  I’ll see myself out.  Anaan esaam Qun.”

“Nehra Qun.  Panahedan.”

Gatt gives him a smile and a quick tap on the shoulder as he goes to the door and opens it.  Then he is gone.

 

After his preparations are complete, Bull remembers his appointment with Dorian the following evening - his mind has been a complete blank of automatic focus since his orders were received that he had not thought about it until then.  Clumsily, he taps out a message on his phone, ‘sorry have to cancel - work.’  Almost immediately, the phone buzzes and Bull looks at the message to see, ‘bw us we’ll nver get this done!! 19th kngswy 230 or wintersend or NEVER’.

‘19th ok’  Bull texts, and then holds the phone, waiting, unable to help a slightly wry smile when it buzzes again to reveal the message, ‘R U SURE??’ He laughs a little at the tone, can just imagine Dorian saying it, and texts ‘yes. very.’ by way of response.  Then he turns the phone off, cradles it in his hand for a second, and puts it in a drawer of his desk.  He checks the contents of his backpack quickly and throws the strap over one shoulder, checks around himself as he leaves, and then closes and locks the door behind him.


	8. Chapter 8

Bull unlocks the door, not even seeing how badly his hands are shaking.  Six days have slipped by since he was last in the apartment, and it feels like the room is accusing him already.  He creeps inside, throws the backpack down and kicks the door closed to slide down it, coming to rest sitting on the floor.  For a moment, all he does is stare at the floor, then his hand comes up to his forehead and he rests it there for a moment, feeling old and tired and done.  It was bad from start to finish, but the worst of it is that he feels like he should have known the set up right from the beginning, known that the Chargers would have been at such a massive risk.  For himself, he knows what the outcome of this episode is, that he’s traded his status for their lives, but he cannot begin to feel regret for that.  He can only assume that the message he received immediately after the aborted mission was Gatt, though he’ll never know for sure; all the voice had said was that he is now Tal-Vashoth, an enemy of the Qun and all it stands for.

 

After he has cast the backpack under the bed so that he doesn’t have to look at it, he roams about the little apartment like he’s lost something.  He takes a shower, drinks a cup of scalding hot tea, flicks through _The Long March_ _,_ just reading his favourite passages, all the while feeling aimless, wondering if this will be his life to come.  Purposelessness terrifies him in a deeply agonising way, so he tries to ignore it.  Eventually, he gets bored with reading the same passage over and over, and thinks to take a walk.  So he zips up his hoodie and, after shutting up his apartment again, lopes down the stairs and into the haze of late summer.

 

He’s not going anywhere in particular, which of course means that eventually, he’s down by the docks again.  There must be a catch just in, because the wharf is bustling with people, hauling nets, ferrying rope, yelling and laughing.  Bull smiles a little with the activity, enjoying the hubbub, though he cannot help but be aware of the way that two men are watching him from the prow of a docked vessel.   _It’s not paranoia if they really are after you_ he thinks ironically, but turns his footsteps away from the wharf, and back into a less crowded, though still populated area.  He walks up, past the Antivan cafe at the corner, hearing the laughter of women and the call of gulls.  He passes the second hand bookstore, looks in the window, and in the reflection sees two different men idling by the florist across the road.  They are having a loud argument, drawing attention to themselves, but Bull knows this ruse, and wonders dispassionately when he can expect a knife or something even less pleasant.   _Radium_ _,_ he thinks, _that’d be a bad way to go_ , not something we’d use, surely.  He is drawing level with the Isle of Dogs now, and has just crossed the street and is walking past the bakery it is next to when he hears a hiss by his elbow, just catching the the words, “Ebost issala, Tal-Vashoth,” before the cold metal slides through the fabric of his hooded sweatshirt and into the Kevlar below with a  brutal, sudden pressure.  Bull grunts, his focus narrowed so that he barely feels his left hand circling around his torso to grab the man’s clothing, pulling him forward quickly.  His right elbow and forearm moves up and out, into his attacker’s jaw.  The man shrieks, and stumbles backward, clutching at his face, blood spurting between his fingers.  Working on reflex alone, Bull lets go of the first attacker, swings his left arm out and wide, catching the second man in the throat by pure chance so that he makes a wuffing noise and tries to breathe, looking panicked.  Bull then drives a hard fist into the man’s stomach, and he doubles over, trying to retch and draw breath at the same time.  The first man has staggered to his feet again quickly, his mouth and chin covered in his own blood, the knife still clutched in one hand.  He swipes distractedly at the blood, and Bull can see that he’s not fully recovered yet.  The man feints right with the knife, then drives forward onto Bull’s left side, completely predictable.  Everyone attacks on the blind side, he thinks, grabbing the man’s arm and twisting violently, relishing the pop of tendons and the crunching tear of the muscles in his attackers shoulder.  He barely feels a charge of electricity go by him, but he does note that his second attacker has been neutralised, twitching on the ground as if he has been tazered.  The first man cries out, pain and rage mingled together, and Bull hisses into his ear, “My soul might be dust, but yours is about to be splattered all over the pavement.  Welcome to failure, defransdim vashedan.”  With that, he hitches the man’s arm back and pushes while simultaneously hooking his foot around the man’s ankle and pulling backwards, tipping the man off balance.  The man lands flat on his face on the concrete with a short, disjointed noise of pain, blood and teeth fanning onto the pavement where he lands.  His dislocated arm is twisted horribly behind him, his nose bleeding profusely, his jaw obviously shattered.  Bull kneels on the man’s wrist, grasps his head between two huge hands, and finally hears sirens and his name.

 

“Bull!” Dorian says it again, louder than before.  “Stop, stop, katoh, stop it right now.  Al’s called the police, they’ll be here any second.”  His hand is outstretched, slightly to the right of Bull, aimed at the other attacker.  Electricity arcs and dances over his palm.  Bull growls, still momentarily lost in the fight, and then stretches his shoulders, still kneeling on the ground, and nods.  Cass appears from the open door, fists clenched, but then looks over the situation and remarks, “I was coming to see if you needed any help.  It seems you have the situation well in hand.”  She grimaces slightly, looking around at the crowd of onlookers and says to Dorian, “Lower your hand.  This isn’t Tevinter.”

 _“ Really_ _?”_ Dorian snaps, “I hadn’t noticed.” But he does as she tells him, curling his fingers in, disbursing the magical charge.  Bull draws a deep breath in, feels the thrum of excitement coursing out from his centre abate a little now that the fight is over.  Two squad cars pull up to the curb then, sirens wailing, and he shakes his head, preparing his answers carefully.

 

++

 

“You’re _not_ pressing charges?  Uh, is it just me, or…”

“Look,” Bull laughs, “if they had really wanted me dead, I’d be dead.  That was just a formality.”

Al blows out a breath, shaking his head.  “Bloody hell.  Bit old fashioned, isn't it? Couldn’t they have just hacked your Facebook?"

“It’s okay, Al." He looks away from Al for a second, before saying, "I’m fine.”

“Only because you weren’t stupid.  Maker, how you thought to wear body armour…”

“I’m only half-blind.  Doesn’t mean I can’t read the writing on the wall.”  Bull smiles sadly and folds his arms over his chest, “Honestly, it feels… better somehow.  To have it over and done with.  Kinda like I can get on with the rest of my life.  So… all-round, yeah.  I’m good.”

“You’re good.”  Al repeats in an amazed tone of voice.  He chuckles and puts his feet up on the desk, then says, “I knew a Qunari once.  He was a weird bloke, didn’t talk very much.  Went by the name of Sten.  You don’t know him, do you?”

Bull snorts and raises his eyebrows, then stands up from leaning against the frame of the door into Al’s office. “I knew a lot of Stens.  Although,” He chuckles and asks Al, all semblance of seriousness on his face, “there was this human girl I met once, a barmaid. Flissa.  Do you know _her_?”

Al laughs, looking a little abashed.  “Okay, point taken.”  He looks at Bull, appears to be thinking, and says, “I’m gonna shut up shop soon.  You want to come up to the flat for a drink with us?  Being Tuesday and all?”

 

“Yeah, alright.  Sounds good,” Bull says, and smiles slightly.  He nods at Al, then turns and walks out into the shop.  Varric is sitting on the sofa, knees up, a lined notebook open on them.  “Tiny,” he says, without looking up, “what’s a better word for eviscerate?”

“Disembowel? Gut?  Either of those floating your boat?”

Varric nods, smiling, “Yeah, gut.  That’s what I was going for.”  He resumes writing, ballpoint looping over the paper quickly.  Bull walks over to the window, looks out at the street through the backwards letters painted on the glass in an arch.  “You coming up to Al’s?” Varric asks him, and Bull turns to see Varric looking at him. Bull nods, “Yeah, he invited me.”  Varric grins, says, “Cool.  You might get to meet some of the crew from Inquisition.”

“Really?  They’re the other outfit right?.. technically competition for you guys.”

 

“Ever heard the phrase, ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer?” Varric laughs, and then tells Bull, “This is a little of both.  Well, nah, they’re pretty cool and they do way different stuff than we do, so it’s more like…” he thinks for a moment, then says, “Cogs in the wheel, you know?  We all help out.”  Varric drops his eyes back to the page he’s been writing on, then darts his eyes back up quickly to Bull, clearing his throat.  “And Tiny,” he says, suddenly gruff, “I’m sorry for being kind of a dick the other day.”

“You weren’t.” Bull shakes his head, “I was the one being a dick about it.”

“Yeah, well… water under the bridge, I guess,” Varric chuckles.  He looks away from Bull, his grin broadening, and says, “And here’s your knight in shining armour now…”

“Moi?” Dorian asks, coming into the reception area with a client, his last of the day.  He grins mischievously at Varric, then continues to give the haughty, blue-eyed man the same after-care speech he had given Bull.  Bull listens with half an ear, his eyes on Dorian, while actually concentrating on Varric.  It never ceases to amaze him how unguarded people are when they think no one's looking; Varric is regarding Bull with no small degree of smugness.  As his eyes move between Bull and Dorian, a small, warm smile plays about his lips, and he rubs at the top of the crossbow bolt tattooed on his chest, just visible over the open neck of his shirt.  Bull detects a slight wistfulness in Varric’s gaze; to Bull, he has the look of a man who considers himself something of a puppeteer, though for altruistic, almost romantic reasons.  He smiles internally, wondering if Varric has any steel to his character other than his carapace, then thinks, no, this is a man who would give his friends anything, but be very slow to forgive if they ever betrayed him.

 

Dorian finishes his speech and claps the man on the arm.  “Remember, Sebastian, you can come in or call any time if you need to.”  The man thanks him formally, almost stiffly, and Dorian smiles.  The smile remains until the man is safely out the door and out of view, and then Dorian slumps against the counter, whacking his head slightly harder than necessary against the top of it, and uttering a loud moan.  Varric laughs and Cass, coming up behind Dorian from the studio, smiles and asks, “Hard work?”

“The worst!” Dorian moans, “All boring, boring Chantry symbols, starbursts and purifying flames and doves and… ugh!”  He sighs into the desk, “And I know I’m a snob, but he was just ridiculous!”

 

Cass shakes her head, still smiling at Dorian’s back, “As long as they pay up, we don’t have to like them.”

“Got that right, Seeker,” Varric says, “It’s worse when they take a shine to you though…”  Cass arches her eyebrow, looking genuinely puzzled, then looks at the photos on the wall sadly.  “I don’t think that’s ever happened to me.”

Varric makes a noise deep in his throat and looks at her strangely.  “Just when I’m starting to believe all this tough punk hype of yours…” he shakes his head, “You gotta go pull a lonely girl line like that out of the bag.”  Cass snorts and glares at Varric, then asks, “What happened to Anders?  And where is Fenris?  I thought he’d be here by now.”

Dorian answers her, still with his head on the counter, rolling his forehead over the cool surface. “Anders and Hawke are coming later.  I don’t know where Fenris is…”

“He said he’ll come if he can,” Al says, stepping out of his office and closing the door with a bang.  “Which is very mysterious of him, since he never misses Tuesdays, but…” he shrugs, opens the door to the street and says, “Just come up when you’re done, yeah, guys?”  He holds the door open and asks Bull, “Are you coming?”

Bull nods, starts to walk forward, but not before catching the shocked expression on Dorian’s face.  His mouth drops open as if he is about to speak, but then his expression closes up again and he shrugs, almost imperceptibly.

 

There is a little door on the street which Al unlocks and pushes open, revealing a flight of steep stairs.  He calls up, “Daddy’s home!” and there is an audible scrabbling of paws and a loud bark of joy.  “Oh shit, are you okay with dogs?” Al asks as he enters the dim stairwell, and Bull laughs, turning his head slightly to the side to admit his horns.  “Yeah,” he tells Al, “though that sounds less like a dog and more like a monster truck that barks.”

Al laughs, ascending the stairs two at a time.  Bull follows, keeping his head on an angle in the narrow corridor so as not to scrape the paintwork.  When he reaches the landing, echoing to the sound of excited barks, he finds Al on his knees, cradling the head of a mabari hound between his hands.  “Aw, baby, Mama’s not home yet.  You want to meet my friend?” The mabari cocks it’s head, looks from Al to Bull and gives a happy bark.  “Bull, this fearsome beast is Noodle.  Noodle,” the dog looks at Al, tongue lolling, “meet Bull.”

 

The dog stares at Bull, it’s preternaturally intelligent eyes yellow in the dim light, and scents the air.  Bull crouches on the ground next to Al, holds out his hand to Noodle and says, “How do, Noodle?”  The dog looks at Al again, as if saying, ‘is this guy for real?’ and then seems to grin at Bull, placing its paw in his hand and barking once.  Then he turns around and trots into the apartment.  Al chuckles, and he and Bull rise together, then Al holds out his hand and says, “Welcome to chez Cousland-Theirin.”

 

The room Bull enters is messy with things, looks lived in and loved.  The sofa sitting against one wall is covered with a red throw, there is a threadbare rug on the floor.  Noodle goes to the middle of the rug and walks in a circle before flopping down in the middle and resting his head on his paws, looking at Al.  Books, CDs, records and a battered-looking record player sit in a shelf on the opposite wall, seemingly without order.  Dog toys, sketch books, pencils and a half finished piece of embroidery sit in various locations around the living area, which is bordered by a small kitchen that Al enters.  He begins rummaging in cupboards, pulling out bottles and glasses of various shapes and sizes.  “Everyone likes something different,” he says into a cupboard, and Bull assumes he is talking to himself until Al asks, “What’s your poison, Bull?  I think we’ve got everything alcoholic known to man by now.  And some previously only known to dwarf.”

“Got a beer?”

“In the fridge; get one for me too?  Please?”

Bull crosses the tiny linoleum floor and opens the fridge door, peering into the orange light.  He marvels at the contents for a second; there are two eggs, a half-empty can of baked beans of uncertain vintage, a withered broccoli and three shelves of beer bottles inside it.  He removes two of the bottles, removes the caps and taps Al on the shoulder with one.  “Why so much booze?”  he asks.

 

Al laughs, and says, “It’s a Warden thing.  Or maybe a Fereldan thing.  Or maybe something else.  But we’ve done Tuesdays like this ever since my dad owned the shop,” Al points with the beer bottle toward the picture of the laughing human man and the elven woman, the same one that hangs in the shop, though slightly larger here.  There is another photograph with it, also black and white, of a human man and woman, he walking with a quiet confidence and soldierly bearing, she with a wild grace, loose skirts billowing in the wind.  They are holding hands with a little boy and girl.  “That’s my mum and dad, and Gwen’s mum and dad, and her brother, Fergus.  All gone now,” he sighs a little and then laughs and says, “Oh, not Fergus.  He’s still kicking around up in Highever.  Gwen’s always saying we should go visit, but we never get around to it.  I don’t think he really approves of me.”

“That’s brothers for you.”

“Yeah, I suppose.  You got any family?”

“Nah.  Well, none that I know.  Qunari don’t really do family.”

“Oh.  What?  By choice, or…” Al frowns, suddenly looking alert and defensive, “You’re not… abandoned or anything?  Oh no, Maker, I’m sorry, I didn’t…”

“Relax, Al.  No, it’s just a cultural thing.  We’re raised communally; means we have more in common with our peers.  We call them our brothers and sisters, but as far as we know they’re not related to us by blood.”

Al sighs, grins a little in a hangdog kind of way.  “Sorry,” he says, “I didn’t mean to get all weird.”

Bull chuckles, hears voices on the stairs, “No problem.”

 

The door opens and Noodle gets to his feet quickly, gives a happy sounding bark and bounds forward.  “Who’s a beautiful puppy?  Who’s a gorgeous widdle fella, huh?  Issat Noooodle? Issit?”  Hawke croons, immediately on his knees in front of the dog, who slavers into his neck, lining the shoulder of his t-shirt with drool.  The dog puts one paw up on Hawke’s chest and barks again, and Al laughs and says, “Let them get in the door, you dozy thing.  Noodle!”  The dog ignores him, and Al walks slowly to the dog and says his name again, “Get down.”

 

The dog looks at Al sadly, then back at Hawke as if to say, ‘don’t you love me?’, then returns to his place on the rug.  “Aw, Noodle,” Hawke says, and knee walks over to the middle of the rug to sit beside Noodle on the floor.  He scratches the dog behind his ears, and Noodle whimpers, grinning and looking at Hawke adoringly.  Bull takes a drink and Anders sticks his head around the door to ask Al, “Noodle occupied?”

“Yup, your boyfriend’s got him under his thumb again,” Al grins.  “Man, you’re a wimp.  Dog couldn’t hurt you if he tried.”

“He’s a mabari!  Bred for battle, remember?  Anyway,” Anders says, quickly crossing the room into the kitchen, where he immediately grabs the nearest bottle and two glasses, “I’m more of a cat person.  And, hi Bull.  How’s tricks?”

Bull smiles and says, “Good.  What about you?”

“Good, he says!”  Al shakes his head and looks at Bull, his eyes widening, “Bull nearly got stabbed outside the shop today.”

“Aw, it wasn’t…” Bull starts, but Anders says, “Fuck, what happened, are you okay?” just as Hawke chimes in with, “Who was it, what happened, who got stabbed?  What am I missing over here?”

 

They are looking at Bull, as if expecting him to tell the story.  He swallows, his throat suddenly dry.  He lets the silence go on a beat too long, he knows he’s doing it, but he really doesn’t want to supply any context around what happened; it all seems part of another life, finished with.  Al opens his mouth, begins to say, “It was crazy, these two dudes attacked him…” and then the door opens again and Dorian crows, “Here we are, finally!  All cleaned up, bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to get drunk in the name of team building.  Ooh, why the long faces?”  He looks around the room, frowning slightly and Cass says from behind him, “Move your ass, Tevinter.”

“Stop _poking_ me, Cassandra, or I’ll tell everyone what I caught you reading the other day…”  

“You will _not …_ ”

“I will too, I’ll hint and hint until everyone will know what a sucker for trash you really are…”  But he shifts himself, and Cass enters, glowering like a thunderstorm but rather pink about the ears, then Varric and Fenris.  “No way man,” Varric is saying, “if you try and go too fine, it’ll blur.  I don’t care what your freaky elf tattoos can do.”

“They’re not _my_ freaky elf tattoos, you moron.” Fenris huffs, and says, “Zev was saying…”

“Oooh, _Zev_ _!_ ” Varric squeals, flapping his hands to the side in a very uncharacteristic gesture, “I didn’t realise your new hero had told you this!  It must be true then!”  

“If you dare tell anyone…” Cass hisses, and Dorian laughs and blows her a kiss, “As if I would, you know that…” And all Bull needs to do is stand back and let the new conversations wash over him, allowing him some space to breathe again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The work I've referenced Bull reading when he comes home from the Storm Coast is _The Long March_ by Simone de Beauvoir, which is a collection of essays about her experiences in China in 1955. There are two reasons I've referenced this work (and these also apply to a work I talk about later, _The Fall_ by Albert Camus); firstly, because Bull has spent a lot of time in Orlais, I've just repositioned de Beauvoir (and later, Camus) as being Orlesian; Bull seems to me at least, to be the kind of guy that would really dig philosophy, especially existentialist philosophy. Secondly, because _The Long March_ is about the experiences of a European Marxist in China as communism was beginning to be entrenched there, and I kind of equate some of the thought processes behind the Qun with some Communist thought, I thought it would be kind of an interesting comparison. Because this is an AU, I feel okay about doing that.


	9. Chapter 9

The beer is warm.  Bull only notices this when he finally remembers that he is holding it, and goes to take a drink.  Although he has all the appearance of being engaged in a conversation going on between Hawke, Varric and a weird elven woman, his mind never leaves Dorian.  He is able to clearly pick out his voice, laughter spiralling over the top of the noise of the conversations and music.  Some of the crew from Inquisition have arrived already - the weird elf introduced herself by sticking out her hand and grinning as she said, “Wotcha, I’m Sera.  Are all’a youse lot big, like you?  Your women and that too?”

Bull looks over her tattoos - the entirety of her right arm appears to be Hello Kitty engaging in a series of lewd acts, and her left is decorated with a gorgeous art nouveau rendition of Ariel, the Disney mermaid.  She is dressed in a bright red racer-back singlet and denim short-shorts, with yellow plaid-patterned tights underneath.  Her worn red Converse hi-tops have seen better days, but she is staring up at him with an expression of avid interest, waiting on an answer, so he laughs and says, “Yeah.  Oh yeah.”

“Phwoar,” she answers, and her eyes go misty, her grin broadening.  Bull laughs loudly at her expression, so blatantly are her mental images written on her features.  She laughs along with him, arching her eyebrows and then asks, “What?” which makes Bull laugh again.

 

“Any band that has ‘revival’ in it’s title should have it’s albums ritualistically burnt,” Hawke groans as ‘Green River’ begins to play on the stereo, and Varric chortles.  “Yeah well, that’s why we can’t play music in the store - everyone likes different stuff.  You and Fenris seem to have similar taste though…”

“Oh yeah, I got that Dir En Grey album to give back to him… thanks man, I totally would have forgotten.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Varric rolls his eyes, “Taliesin’s personal reminder service.  Oh shit, it’s Dagna…”

Hawke and Sera laugh, and Hawke says, “You look beautiful, big boy.  Go get her.”

“Fuck you, Hawke.” Varric glares up at Hawke, who is almost doubled over laughing now,  Sera trying to breathe through her guffaws, “And you, Buttercup.”

“Aw, Varric, c’mon…”

Bull looks toward the door and sees a bright eyed female dwarf enter, dressed casually in jeans and a pale yellow short-sleeved, low cut top, a bright, abstract design branching over the top of her chest, arcing towards her neck like something growing.  The colours are muted golds and ochres, accentuating the gold of her hair, which is held back in a loose ponytail by a pink ribbon.  Her bare arms are all over asymmetrical lines, some intersecting, others on their own, interspersed with tiny triangles and stars in the same colours. She immediately goes to Al, hugging him around his thigh, as he looks down at her and laughs, and then she scratches Noodle under the chin, laughing herself as Anders scoots unceremoniously closer to a grim looking bald elf and Al to put some distance between himself and the dog.  A human woman in a blue bandana and a lot of gold piercings and jewellery laughs at the sight, and even Fenris smiles.  At this moment, however, Bull’s attention is wrested away from Dagna to the door again, through which a Qunari enters, his arms laden with pizza boxes, followed closely by a thin, almost frightened looking young man.  He hears Sera hiss quietly next to him, a sound of disgust, then she says, “Cole, ugh.  Worst apprentice ever.  Why’d ‘Taash have to bring him?”

“Aw, c’mon, Sera, he’s not that bad.”  Hawke shrugs and hollers, “Adaar!”

 

 _Weapon_ _,_ Bull thinks, _his name means weapon , he has to be Tal-Vashoth_ _._  And then this Adaar is grinning at Hawke, waving back.  He hands the pizza boxes to Cole, points in the direction of the kitchen and gives him an encouraging shove.  Then he lopes toward their little group, extending a huge hand to Hawke.  He is dressed simply, a dark blue-checked shirt, open at the neck, the sleeves rolled back to his elbows, with dun-coloured chinos.  The tattoos along his forearms are geometric, lines and shapes, intersecting along the ridges of muscle, seeming to emphasise his anatomy.  Bull sees that the pattern must continue up his arms, as he glimpses more of the same sort of linear pattern through the open throat of the Tal-Vashoth’s shirt.  His horns are elegant, backswept things, the black at their base contrasting dramatically with the white hair, worn long, and his gestures are understatedly assured.  The only slightly perturbing thing about him is his eyes - they are the red of fresh blood.  “Hawke,” he smiles, “How are you?  Up to any new mischief?”

“Just the usual kind,” Hawke answers vaguely, waving his hand, and then he turns to Bull, “Ataash, this is Bull.  Bull, Ataash Adaar.  You could call him the Inquisitor…”

“...but only if you call this guy the Champion.  And we all know how much he fuckin' _loves_ that.”  He speaks Common clearly, perfectly, unlike a Qunari who was raised to Qunlat and had to learn Common to get by.  He’s also, now that Bull is looking at him closely, far too young to be Tal-Vashoth.  He revises his opinion, thinks that he must be Vashoth, born outside the Qun entirely.  Ataash thrusts his hand toward Bull; he is smiling, but his eyes are narrowed in an appraising way.  “Nice to meet you,” Bull says politely, and puts his hand into Ataash’s. They shake, but Ataash doesn’t let go of his hand immediately, holding it clutched in his own, his thumb moving slowly over the ridge of bone at the base of Bull’s thumb, just on the brink of impropriety.  This one is used to getting what he wants, Bull thinks, and he smiles slightly, then Ataash releases his hand, smiling back, his eyes still narrowed.  “Whatcha doing in Redcliffe, Bull? You a merc?”

“Yeah, of a sort,” Bull answers, slowly, and Ataash laughs, and nods, “Knew it!  My dad runs companies, up in the Marches.  Been running with mercenaries ever since I could run.  Even headed my own company for a while.  ‘Til I ended up in Redcliffe and helped to start up Inquisition.”  He stops, smiling still, and Bull watches the pulse in Ataash’s throat quicken slightly, sees the way his lip curls, the shallowing out of his breathing.  He immediately knows what the young Qunari is thinking, wonders what playing this game would get him.  Ataash clears his throat, and into the gap in conversation Hawke interjects, “I’ll see you in a bit,” he looks around Ataash’s shoulder, frowning in concern, “Gotta make sure Anders eats something.”

“Yeah, cool, man.”  Ataash continues to look at Bull, and asks, “So, who do you know that you’re here?  Do you work with Hawke or something?”

“Nah.  Dorian’s been…”

“Oh, Dorian!  He’s great, man, I wish we’d got him.  Great in _every_ sense,” he almost purrs, and glances to his right, around at where Dorian is standing talking to Cass, waving his hands in the air like he is demonstrating something.  Cass looks amused, and then catches Bull looking at Dorian and her smile widens still.  Ataash lowers his voice, that knowing smirk broadening as he asks, “So, he’s been doing some work with you, huh?”  Ataash’s smile changes just fractionally, becomes slow and lascivious, “Can I see?”

Bull looks at Ataash directly, and returns his smile, giving him a half-shrug.  He begins to unzip his hooded sweatshirt.  Ataash’s eyes widen slightly, and his upper lip curls a little, almost revealing teeth.  Bull smiles internally and thinks _don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing_ and decides to play the game a little.  He pulls the cloth aside slow enough to make it an invitation, and Ataash takes the bait, bending forward slightly to get a better look.  “Wow,” he breathes, and a finger reaches out to trace the edge of the dragon’s neck, up Bull’s sternum, slowly, really a caress.  His finger continues up Bull’s chest, up to the dragon’s horns, then travels back down again, Ataash turning his hand when he reaches the dragon’s body so that the backs of his nails drag against Bull’s skin.  Bull watches his face, the way the nostrils flare slightly just before Ataash glances up at him, that hungry little smirk still in place and opens his mouth to say something when Dorian says, “My, aren’t we handsy?  Hello, ‘Taash.  Nice to see you’ve been here two minutes and already convinced someone to show you their chest.  Given up on Cass, have we?”

 

Ataash laughs and straightens up, turning to greet Dorian, who has his arms folded over his chest, and a rather ironic smile on his face.  He keeps his eyes on Ataash, but Bull gets the sense that he is being observed as well.  So he smiles at Dorian, but leaves his zip undone.  “Hey, Dorian.  You should know it never takes that much convincing with us Qunari,” Ataash tells Dorian, “we’re always pretty keen to get our kit off.  You wanna find out how quick I can get mine off?”  Dorian gives him a cold look and says, “Indulging our imagination again, are we?  You are a sad, strange man.”

“I’m not Qunari, anyway” Bull corrects, “I’m Tal-Vashoth.”

Ataash clicks his tongue and rolls his eyes, “Yeah, yeah, to those of us born outside the Qun, it’s all semantics, cutie.  Qunari is just what everyone calls us down here.  Technically, I’m Vashoth, but whatever.  Doesn’t mean anything to anyone else.”

 

Dorian looks at Bull strangely, frowning slightly, then Sera bounds back up to the group and screeches, “‘Taash!  Magebits!  Big guy!  You lot playin’ wicked grace? I swear,” she says, hands on hips, “It’s definitely not strip this time.  Cass and Izzie are too friggin’ good, Dags in't innerested, and last time, I ended up seeing way too much..” She shudders, and whispers, “pork sausage.” Then she laughs, grinning around at them, spreading her hands wide, “So?  You guys in?” She is practically hopping with excitement as she goads, “Put your sovereigns on the table!”

“Yeah, I’ll play,” Ataash says, but Bull is shaking his head.  “Nah,” he says, “Maybe later.  I gotta take a leak.”  Dorian shakes his head as well, and she pouts, “Aw, but Magebits, you’re so crap, it’s like shootin’ fish in a barrel.  C’mon!”  Bull begins to move off, hoping to find a bathroom, and overhears Dorian complain, “Oh really? You wanted me to play because you thought I’m an easy target..?”

“Well yeah, you’re the one with the gold shittin’ down on ya…”

“No, no, dear heart, I left all that behind in Tevinter.  I do miss the shitting.” He sighs loudly, “Maker, you’re _so_ charming.”

“I know, right?!”  As Bull closes the door behind him, he grins to hear Sera’s confused tones say, “Wait, what?”

 

++

 

Bull finds himself in a small corridor, painted a rather experimental shade of blue.  Or half-painted, as only the bottom half is blue; obviously whoever was doing the painting didn’t have a ladder. The first door he tries opens onto a small, very untidy study, crammed with loose papers, notebooks and a desk on which sits a very old computer.  Above the computer is a noticeboard, on which Bull sees several photographs of a much younger Al and a woman with short, wild looking dark hair, her pale grey eyes shining with laughter.  There are several official looking documents on Warden letterhead, one with a post-it note on that reads in spiky, rushed looking cursive, ‘Clarel being weird AGAIN?’, another with a post-it that reads, ‘Calling already? Ask Riordan?’.  Bull sees three books piled on the keyboard of the computer; the topmost entitled Inconceivable: fighting negativity to achieve fertility.  He closes the door quietly and tries the next, to discover a small, tidy, but ill-lit bathroom.  A neglected pot-plant sits on the toilet tank, and after Bull has flushed, he takes pity on it and gives it some water.  The bathroom smells nice, and Bull smiles when he looks in the mirror over the sink and sees rows of shampoo bottles and various body-washes in brightly coloured bottles on a shelf inside the shower.  He’s never been able to get over his fascination with all the things the other races use to make themselves smell different; like a berry, or a flower.  It’s as he is thinking this that there is a knock on the door.  “Occupied,” Bull says, and Dorian replies through the door, “I know.  Are you finished?”

 

By way of answer, Bull opens the door, then shifts a little to move back to the sink to wash his hands.  He glances in the mirror again and sees Dorian’s face reflected there.  His stare is accusing, and Bull frowns and asks, “What?”

Dorian folds his arms and huffs, then looks down.  “I might ask you the same thing.  I know that ‘Taash is shameless, he flirts with anything that moves.  Was I wrong to expect that you might have had the decency to at least pretend you didn’t enjoy it?”  He looks up quickly, into the mirror, and his eyes blaze at Bull.  He pauses, then, with anger giving an edge to his voice says, “It wasn’t a rhetorical question.”

Bull narrows his eye into the mirror at Dorian.  Deliberately, he turns off the tap and shakes the water off his hands.  He then pulls the hand towel off the rail, dries his hands thoroughly, then refolds the towel and puts it back. Then he turns to Dorian, who he can see is becoming increasingly impatient and asks, “Why should I pretend?  I did enjoy it.  It was nice to know what someone wanted.”

Dorian’s eyes go round, then he frowns and his jaw clenches.  He hisses, “And what is that supposed to mean?”

“Come on, Dorian.  Stop being obtuse.”  Bull shakes his head, not bothering to keep his own annoyance out of his voice, “You dance around me pretending you don’t know what you want so that you can save face.  Who you’re saving face for is a mystery to me, since no-one really cares about who you’re with, not really.”  He smiles then, a little sadly, and cocks his head, knowing the statement will be brutal, but a part of him wanting to say it anyway, “Must be just the Father in your head.”  He watches Dorian’s face change, his spine straighten and mouth open as if he is going to argue, but Bull stops him short by telling him, “If you want me for a fuck every now and then, that’s honestly fine.  I won’t make any claim.  But that kind of thing goes both ways; you can’t make any claim on me either.  But you know,” and he drops his voice to its most gravelly depths, “If you want me for more than that, all you gotta do is make up your mind.”

 

Dorian is silent, still looking at Bull with his mouth open.  Bull shrugs and takes a step forward, making for the door.  Dorian puts his hand out suddenly, nearly on Bull’s chest, hovering over it and says, “Wait.”  He’s breathing heavily, Bull sees, and when he looks properly at Dorian’s face, he can see clearly the nature of the warring emotions written there; he feels for him a little.  But his own face remains impassive, doing as Dorian asks and just waiting, until Dorian gets his thoughts in order enough to say, “Right.  Yes.”  He pauses, and on one breath he says, “I don’t want you now and then.  I need more than that.” He looks at Bull, turning his head to the side, and Bull sees the guilt and shame in those grey eyes at his admission, notes the use of the word _need_ _._  He continues to look at Bull for a moment longer, then grits his teeth and continues, “I want more, I always want more than what might be considered good for me.  But… understand that this is… challenging.”  He barks a laugh, and says, “Which is a fucking understatement.  When you’ve spent as long as I have unlearning trust, it takes a while to get back in the habit.”  He shrugs and says blithely, “And you know, a lifetime of being scared-shitless-slash-fostering-historical-hatreds of Qunari in general.”

Bull snorts and shrugs.  There isn’t much he can do to assuage the results of Dorian’s past experiences, so he says, “Fair enough.  I can work with that.”  He holds Dorian’s gaze for a moment longer, watching particularly the grey eyes, the sincerity that hugs close to the surface, twisting a little beneath the sarcastic front.  He smiles, says “Come on, let’s get something to eat,” and begins to go to the door again.  Dorian keeps his hand out though, and this time his fingers brush Bull’s flesh, sliding against the dragon.  “Wait, please. Just a moment more.”  He keeps his hand where it is, just above Bull’s heart and asks, “I heard you telling ‘Taash you’re Tal-Vashoth.  What happened?  Did it have anything to do with what happened today?”

It’s Bull’s turn to be silent.  Finally, he manages to get himself under control enough to say, in a flat tone of voice, “Yeah.  I was assigned… a mission.  With my team, up on the Storm Coast.  I had reservations about it right from the start.”  He frowns, looks away from Dorian, struggling with his guilt and anger for a moment.  “It ended with me having to make a decision on whether I’d complete the mission successfully, but leave my team to die, or save them and fail.”  He clenches his jaw, swallowing noisily.  “I pulled them out and the Ben-Hassrath… they…”

A beat of silence, then Dorian says, “They made you pay for it.”

“You could say that.”  Bull sighs, looks past Dorian and catches his own reflection in the glass on the shower door.  “Tal-Va- _fucking_ -shoth.”

Dorian frowns, and says, “You seem to have at least acted like a Tal-Vashoth for years.  How does this change you?”

 

“That was a role,” Bull says, his stomach dropping at the finality of it, feels suddenly vulnerable and hating the weakness that implies.  “This is my _life_ _,_ Dorian.  If I don’t have the Qun to live by…”  He swallows again, shakes his head, trying to quell the bleak, dark rage rising within, “I killed hundreds of those bastards on Seheron.  Murderers, bandits…” he pauses, takes a deep breath and says quietly, “And now I’m one of them.”

“Complete and utter bullshit.”  Dorian’s hand is suddenly hard on Bull’s chest, pushing into him.  Bull is taken by surprise a little at the force with which Dorian pushes him, and he steps back involuntarily, toward the sink.  Dorian continues to push as he says in an undertone, “You’re stronger than you think.  Whatever you live by, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re _good_ _,_ Bull.”  Bull backs up a little further, and the backs of his thighs hit the edge of the sink.  Dorian keeps his left hand on Bull’s chest, pressed there like he wants to feel the pulse of Bull’s heartbeat, and snakes his right around Bull’s waist, under the loose fabric of his sweatshirt.  He smiles slowly, pressing his body up against Bull’s and says again, “You _are_ good.  A little brutally honest, perhaps,” he sniffs and raises an eyebrow, the smile changing to a grin, “And you smell like a Nevarran cheesemonger…”

Bull laughs, and says through his own grin, “Human sweat smells like pork left out in the sun too long, just so you know…”

“Ever the romantic,” Dorian smiles, sliding his hand from Bull’s chest up to the back of his neck, and pulls him down into a kiss.

 

++

 

The kiss is slow, almost languid.  Bull is aware of Dorian’s hands, one on the back of his neck, slowly caressing the valley where the tendons of his neck meet the base of his skull, applying just a little pressure.  The other hand has moved to Bull’s hip and Dorian runs his thumb slowly over the jut of Bull’s hipbone, back and forth.  Bull puts his own hands over Dorian’s hips, slides the tips of his fingers under the waist of Dorian’s jeans and the elastic of his underwear, feels Dorian tense a little.  Bull breaks the kiss to smirk down into Dorian’s face and mutters, “I’m all for exploring the forbidden.  In the interest of baby steps though, how far do you want to go in your bosses only bathroom?”  Dorian laughs a little and winces, “It wouldn’t be the first time some someones have been caught in here.  Though Isabella was being _very_ enthusiastic.”  He draws the hand that has been at the back of Bull’s neck down his shoulder and onto his chest, looking at the dragon there, and tilts his head, thinking.  “Maybe we could work our way up to the bosses bathroom?”

 

With that, the doorknob rattles, and without thinking, Bull and Dorian both say, “Occupied!”  It is Sera’s voice on the other side says, “Well, you better stick your finger up his ass then, because ladies can’t piss outta windows!”

“That would infer that you're a lady, Sera.  Just a minute!” Dorian says, slightly louder than what is necessary, but Bull just laughs.  “May as well have done it now,” he says as Dorian steps away from him, and Dorian sighs and tells him, “Don’t I know it.  It’ll be like a prolonged walk of shame out there.”

“Strut of pride, you mean.”

“Either way,” Dorian concedes, moving his hips around in a circle and pulling at the fabric of his jeans, an uncomfortable look on his face, “I never realised how tight these jeans were until now.”

Bull laughs again, and the doorknob rattles and Sera yells, “C’mon boys, whatcha waiting for?”

“Go piss in the kitchen sink, Sera!” Bull suggests, and Sera replies quickly, in a voice bespeaking a large degree of urgency, “Too many dishes!  C’mon!!”

Bull opens the door, sees Sera clutching herself with both hands, one knee up, biting her lower lip.  “Oh thank you, Andraste’s leopard print drawers, gerroutofmywaaaay…”  She stumbles in, wrenches her pants and tights down with one motion and sighs with satisfaction.  Then she grins at Dorian and Bull and waggles her eyebrows.  “Sorry to innerupt,” she says, sounding anything but, “Wondered where you two was doin’ it.”

“Nobody was _doin’ it_ _,_ Sera,” Dorian glares and she laughs and rises, pulling her clothing up with her in a single movement.  She turns and flushes, then looks coyly over her shoulder at Dorian and smirks, “Looks it.  I’d’a given you five more minutes of neckin’ with the big guy and that banana in your pants’d be in the fruitbowl for sure.”

Bull laughs, and after a moment, Dorian joins him, shaking his head.  “The _fruitbowl_ _?_  Holy shit, Sera,” Bull says around his laughter, “that’s the first time I’ve heard it called that.”

She shrugs, smiling proudly and tells him, “Yeah, I got a whatsit, way wiv words, me.”

“Hmmn,” Dorian says, not sounding convinced at all.  Then he turns a little to look at Bull and asks, “Do you want to get out of here?”

Sera whoops and raises her arms over her head, crying triumphantly, “Cass owes me a sovereign!”  She cackles as she leaves the bathroom and Bull snorts a laugh of his own.  “I meant the bathroom!”  Dorian calls after her, “Out of the bathroom, you nitwit!”  He shakes his head and stage whispers to Bull, “I didn’t mean the bathroom. Do you?  Want to go?”  Bull nods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couple of things for this chapter - Firstly, a gigantic thank you to Dichotomous_Dragon for letting me use her excellent Sera-ism 'Magebits'. It's the perfect, horrible, nickname for Dorian. Secondly, again with the music references: 'Green River' is by Creedence Clearwater Revival, from their album of the same name, written by John Fogerty and released in 1969 (Dir En Grey, in case you're interested, is a Japanese metal band (within metal, I'd categorise them as sludge or ambient, but it differs wildly between albums; consistently they've been considered part of the [visual kei](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_kei) movement within Japanese music - think Gwar, or Rammstein, or Rob Zombie). Thirdly, there's a lot of game dialogue, which I'm sure you all have noticed, but my inner librarian won't let me not reference it. And finally - you made it out of Angst Country! *puts on ominous voice*...for now.


	10. Chapter 10

Bull opens his eyes all of a sudden into a room, his room, striped with sunlight.  “Good morning, you,” Dorian says, and Bull can hear the smile in his voice, though he cannot see it.  Dorian has his head propped on Bull’s chest, holding the paperback book at an awkward angle against Bull’s stomach, so he can read it while still remaining as close as possible to Bull.  “Whatcha reading?” Bull asks him, and Dorian says nothing, just turns the book over, thumb still in place on the spine, and Bull reads aloud, “ _The Fall_. Oh, Camus. “Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object”, am I right?”

“You are.  How your brain holds all that is beyond me.”

Bull chuckles, stretches his shoulders a little and the vertebra in his back click.  He yawns and says, “I totally relate to that sentiment.  Don’t you have to be at work?”

"No,” Dorian says, opening the book again, “No work on Wednesdays.  Thank goodness too, if I have to do one more slavering mabari on the chest of an eighteen year old Fereldan, or bird in flight on the ankle of a fisherman’s wife, I think I’ll go absolutely spare.”

Bull smiles, then asks, “So what do you want to do?”

 

“This was my whole plan.” Dorian looks back at the book briefly, then says with all semblance of lassitude, “Stay in bed, read some Orlesian philosophy, maybe get something to eat,”  He sits up suddenly, leaning on one arm with a worried look on his face, “That is, if I’m not presuming?  If you have plans, I can go…”

“Nope.  No plans.”  Bull yawns again, hugely, then grins rather wickedly at Dorian, “I might have something you can eat.”

Dorian looks at him for a moment, then slaps the book against his chest, as hard as he can manage, while Bull laughs.  “You utter brute,” Dorian says, but his tone is amused, “You utter, filthy beast.  Sully my ears with such innuendo… ugh!”  

“Aw, come on, you walked right into that one!”

In reply, Dorian laughs, throws the book off the bed and leans down, kissing Bull on the mouth, then chuckling into it; he hefts the blankets aside and straddles Bull, kissing up the line of his jaw to his ear.  Bull makes an inarticulate noise, halfway between pleasure and irritation; he almost wishes that Dorian hadn’t found out that Qunari ears are little epicentres of nerves.  He feels Dorian’s lips curve upward in a smile, the tickle of his moustache against the lobe, then the damp heat of his tongue as it slides against the outer ridge.  “Dorian,” Bull growls, “Don’t start what you don’t want to finish…”

 

“Who said I didn’t want to finish?”  Dorian murmurs into his ear, in such a honeyed tone that it is all Bull can do not to flip his hips up and send Dorian onto his back on the mattress.  Instead he settles for a groan - he knows that this slowness, this aching, awful slowness is part of what Dorian needs, part of the complex needs of a complex man.  Slow, agonizing, fluid in its ebb of control, give and take sliding between them both.  Part of the joy of this approach is that Bull can give himself up to it, finds himself rather enjoying the tidal nature of the control; there is no role to play, other than to let them enjoy themselves.  Bull has spent so long giving others what they need that it has become second nature, a natural response for him to do so.  With Dorian, the only thing that Dorian seems to need is the freedom for this alternation to take place, sometimes naturally, sometimes when either of them specifically asks.  It is different, Bull thinks, and interesting, and he hasn’t experienced anything quite like it before.  Hasn’t experienced anything quite like Dorian at all, he amends, and as Dorian slides his hand down Bulls chest, the controlled tingle of electricity sending strange, hitching quivers through the muscles, another line of Camus occurs to him, twists the knife of his pleasure suddenly towards his heart - “True love is exceptional - two or three times a century, more or less. The rest of the time there is vanity or boredom.”  He wonders which this is.

 

++

 

“So, the shop is empty today.”  Dorian states, the coffee cup halfway to his lips.  They are sitting in the Gull again, the midmorning light streaming through the large windows, turning the dust motes in the air to tiny points of light.  He takes a sip, then shrugs as he replaces the cup on the table, looks at Bull to say, “It’s not the nineteenth , but maybe we could get started on the colour this afternoon?”  Bull thinks for a fraction of a second and says, “Yeah.  This is your day off though…”

Dorian flaps a hand at him and rolls his eyes.  “Pah-lease,” he arches an eyebrow, “I could do this in my sleep.  This is the slow bit, so we’ll need to have the nineteenth anyway.”  He looks at Bull steadily, and Bull nods then tells him, “Yeah, alright.  Sounds good.”  He grins at Dorian, then catches Dorian’s left hand up from where it rests on the table and plants a quick kiss on the knuckle, just over a ring with an orange stone in it.  He feels Dorian tense, try to pull his hand back, so Bull holds tighter and clasps the fingers between his own.  He looks at Dorian, and his heart drops to see the front which has come up.  Quietly, gently, he asks, “Are you ashamed of me?”

 

Dorian finally succeeds in wrenching his hand out of Bull’s grip, and shakes his fingers, making a theatrical grimace of pain as he does.  “You know, Bull,” he says through gritted teeth, “Breaking the fingers of your tattoo artist is never a good idea.” He sighs, avoids Bull’s gaze, and says softly, “No.  I’m not ashamed of you… I just… I’ve never really done this before.  You know.  Been out in public.   _Out,_ out.  And besides,” he lowers his voice, looks almost pleadingly at Bull, “I thought we agreed on baby steps.”

“Yeah, I guess, “ Bull says, eyebrow raised, and he chuckles a little despite himself, “but you have to actually take the steps, you know.”

 

Dorian nods, slowly, and then sighs.  He picks up his coffee cup, swirls the remaining liquid, then raises his eyes to the ceiling.  “Maker,” he asks, “if you’re deigning to listen today, it’d be nice of you to convince Bull that I don’t need to wear a t-shirt that has ‘I’m Gay’ picked out in rhinestones on it.  That would be lovely.  By Andraste’s grace, blah blah.”  He waves his free hand airly, finishing his faux-prayer with such a large degree of flippance that Bull almost chokes on a mouthful of bagel.  Once he has recovered, he says, “I definitely don’t need you to wear that t-shirt.  But if we’re going to do more than just fuck,” Dorian winces and frowns slightly, and Bull sighs in annoyance, but lowers his voice, “If we’re going to be more than casual, you’ll have to get used to at least a little bit of that.  I’ll try to restrain myself, but PDA is just how I roll.”

Dorian’s shoulders sag and his gaze goes out the window as he thinks.  Then, finally, he mutters, his expression blank, “Finish your damn tea.  I’ll text Al, let him know we’re coming in.”

“Okay,” Bull tells him, and then his irritation lifts, and he looks at Dorian in concern, “Hey, I didn’t mean to push too hard…”

“You know me scarily well, you know.  That’s the most annoying thing.”  Dorian grimaces, returning his gaze to Bull again, then to his plate, where he pokes at the remainder of the pastry there.  He sighs, “Softly-softly doesn’t get very far with me.  But…”

“One push a day?”

“That would be nice.”

++

 

“Ugh, I feel like I’ve been looking at these reference photos forever.”  Dorian grins at Bull, “If I never actually see a high dragon, it’ll still be too soon.”

“Really?  You getting bored?”  Bull lays back on the chair, wriggles down in it to get more comfortable.  It has been quite fascinating, coming into the studio when there is no one else there - the fluorescents overhead winking and clicking as Dorian turned them on, the space seeming markedly cooler than normal, the antiseptic smell stronger.  Bull had wandered about the space waiting on Dorian to finish his set up.  Eventually, he finds himself face to face with with a small poster, tacked to the wall near the station that Dorian most often uses.  The poster shows a National Geographic style photograph of a Rhesus monkey, baring its teeth at the camera.  Over it, in silver marker, there has been drawn a banded crown, similar to the ceremonial crown of the Archon, and a giant staff with a banana on the end of it is drawn over the monkey’s hand.  A white paper speech-bubble has been pasted alongside the monkey’s open mouth.  The speech bubble reads, ‘Magical brethren!  Make Tevinter your next holiday destination!’  Bull chuckles, and Dorian looks up and groans.  “The comedians that I work with.  Though I’m surprised it’s still up with Fenris around.”  He shakes his head, but doesn’t elaborate further.  Bull gazes at the monkey for a moment longer, and then Dorian says, “Come on, you!  Colour awaits!”

 

It has been months since Bull last sat in this chair, Dorian bending over him, and so much has changed since that first appointment.  It had been the height of summer then, and now the season is on the wane.  The first leaves, red and gold, had fallen in front of them as they had walked to the Gull and Lantern this morning, and the air had seemed cooler than it had in weeks.  Dorian relaxes quickly into a rhythm, though he is concentrating hard, and therefore quiet.  The hum of the machine blurs in Bull’s mind with the dull ache of the needles in his flesh, seeming to sink slowly under his skin and merge into a shallow pool over his heart - he has no word for how he feels, this dull and quiet sense of an uneasy end about to come.  He watches Dorian’s hands as they render the dragon’s colours, seeming to give it life, breath.  Darkness and light, bright oranges, dense blacks, all these make up the dragon’s flesh, Bull’s flesh.  It is power, it is chaos; it is every drive that Bull has tried to crush, every desire that he denied himself in the name of the Qun.  As he watches Dorian’s progress along the right-side wing and down the flank of the dragon’s body, he realises that it was his reaction to the dragon’s, this dragon’s, death which caused him to realise the rift within himself which he had been skirting all his life.  He remembers it well; not just the crash of the waves and the shrieks of the comrades lying crushed or burnt in the surf, the ozone stench of the dragon’s breath and the stink of the blood, but the way he had been elated, beyond and outside himself as he beast had screamed its last.  He could barely contain himself until nightfall - as soon as dusk came, he ordered camp made and almost dragged his lover into the trees.  He smiles grimly at the thought; the rising moon making strange shadows through the leaves, the smell of the dragon still in his nose, how he had come, gasping, in just three quick thrusts.  It all was so long ago, but it all might have been yesterday in his mind.

 

The colours continue to grow, spreading slowly over the dragon until the second wing is almost completed.  Dorian has told Bull that he will leave the more detailed body and head to the nineteenth, when Anders is around, so that healing magic can be performed on the more intricate sections, rather than the ‘grunt work’, which is how he describes the wings.  Eventually, he sits up, turns off the machine and stretches languidly.  Then he sighs, looks at Bull closely with an expression which is all concern, and asks, “Are you alright?  You seem… under a cloud today.”

“Oh, nah.  I’m okay.”  Bull puffs out a breath, then glances down at his chest.  Without saying anything further, he swings his legs over the side of the chair and goes immediately to the mirror.  The wings are completed, strips of pale blue-grey augmenting the darkness under them, the curvature of bone and skin expertly designed to mimic a surface which almost seems to be rich with its own light.  Dorian somehow has lit the wings with the play of water underneath them, adding to the effect.  The completed sections almost sing with light, making the contrast with the incomplete center all the more stark.  Bull stands, motionless, in front of the mirror, completely dumbstruck.  Suddenly he turns to Dorian, who has remained seated, his gloves still on, one elbow propped up on the armrest of the chair Bull has just vacated.  “Kadan,” Bull says quietly, “Kadan, asit ataashraas-an, nehraa ataashraas-toh.”  In two paces, he is in front of Dorian, kneeling on the chilly floor, their faces level with each other.  Bull encircles Dorian’s face with his hands, palms on either side of his throat, fingers entwined at the nape of his neck, pressing his forehead to Dorian’s as he says simply, “Thank you, kadan.” Then, he kneels there in silence, feeling the thrum of his own heart in his chest and Dorian’s in his hands.

Dorian’s throat works under Bull’s hands as he swallows.  “You know, I honestly think that might be the best reaction to an unfinished piece I’ve ever had,” he says, his voice sounding thick. He harrumphs, tries a laugh and says, “I have no idea what you said, but I’m glad you said it.  But...” he laughs again, sounding more like himself, “You still have to pay, you know.”

 

Bull laughs with him, and the moment is gone.  He takes his hands from Dorian, looks at his face as Dorian smirks at him, and shakes his head.  “You gotta learn how to work the moment, Dorian,” he admonishes, and Dorian simply laughs.  “If I was always working the moment, we’d never get out of bed!”

Bull raises an eyebrow and asks, in all seriousness, “And… that would be a bad thing?”  Dorian strips off the gloves, one after the other, and pushes the chair back on its castors, rolling away from Bull.  He rises, throws the gloves underhand into a bin.  “I can think of worse ways to leave this earth, I suppose,” he smiles, then adds as he walks towards the cupboards in the back of the room, “Not many, but a few.  Now sit down while I get this wrapped up.”

 

++

 

The wheel of the year turns, winding down towards the nineteenth of Kingsway. As it does, Bull keeps finding things of Dorian’s in his apartment; a kohl pencil, a book, the button off one of his shirts. One of the pillows smells of him now, and although Bull knows that if Dorian knew it, he would laugh at the sentimentality, but Bull keeps his hand on it as he falls asleep.  Without fail, Dorian texts him if they are not together - first thing in the morning and last thing at night, even if they have spent all day together.  And although Bull tells himself he is taking this slowly, that he has his emotions under control, he knows in his heart what this really is.  He has taken to calling Dorian _kadan_ _,_ and Dorian, a few days later, seems to almost accidentally call him _amatus_ _._  From the way he rubs the back of his neck when he thinks Bull isn’t looking, Bull knows that the word just slipped out.  Later that night, he checks the word on Google Translate, guessing at the spelling.  His heart gives a lurch when he sees the translation it returns to him; _beloved ._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only a short 'un today (aw, and a nice gentle one for a Sunday). In case you were wondering what the heck I did with the Qunlat there, there is no word that I can find for 'beautiful', so I made one up. Bull tells Dorian, essentially, 'this is a glorious something, just like you". And yeah, the notes from an earlier chapter on de Beauvoir apply here to Camus.


	11. Chapter 11

The nineteenth dawns, the low cloud meeting with the mist from the lake, rain threatening. Bull looks at his reflection for a long time in the mirror after he has showered, wiping at the condensation which fogs the glass to see the almost-finished tattoo more clearly.  The appointment isn’t until the later part of the afternoon, and there are a few household jobs that Bull wants to get out of the way first.  Dorian will be at the studio all day, and Bull finds himself curiously bereft without the benefit of his company.  Still, there are things to do, so Bull tries to put the excitement out of his mind and get on with the beginnings of the day.

 

He is walking down to the Isle of Dogs, the sun bright, but the wind off the lake chilly.  He can almost feel the burr of the tattoo gun over his flesh; the more he tries not to be, the more excited he gets. Hands in pockets, he looks around him, observing more out of habit than anything else.  A busker, guitar in her arms, sings, “...try to forget it, you will make me call your name, and I'll shout it to the blue summer sky…” and smiles at Bull when he drops several coins into her open case.  The bakery wafts the smell of yeast and spun sugar out onto the street, and then as the breeze shifts direction, the florist competes, mingling those scents with that of embrium and crystal grace.  White movement catches Bull’s eye as he passes, and he turns to see the nodding head of an orchid in the shop window as the flowers catch in the breeze.  He stops, looks at it, and frowns, thinking.  Then he pushes the door of the florists open and enters.

 

Dorian is standing in the reception area, looking intently at Fenris.  From the expression on his face, he looks as if Fenris is telling him something he doesn’t particularly care to hear, but Bull only hears “...spoilt, growing fat on the backs of those under them.”  Then both men look at him as the bell over the door chimes, and Bull smiles at Dorian and says, “Ready?”

“Oh yes.  Very.”  Dorian looks down at what Bull is carrying and he bites his lower lip, nostrils flaring slightly.  “Orchids,” he says, and swallows.

“Oh yeah.  These are for you,”  Bull grins and thrusts the wrapped stems toward Dorian, who colours, then puts his hand out tentatively to accept them.  Fenris’ eyes widen, then he looks at Dorian and a smile pulls at his lips.  Gently, he puts a hand on Dorian’s elbow, smiles at Bull and turns, stalking back through to the studio.  “I… ah, I don’t…”  Dorian finally manages, clutching the flowers in both hands now, staring at them.  Bull smiles a little at the awkward expression on Dorian’s face, then steps toward him and says quietly, “It was a whim.  Put it down to last appointment fancy.”

“They’re… they’re beautiful, Bull.  Thank you.”  He takes a last look at the flowers, then raises an eyebrow to Bull, “Impractical. I thought that was my thing.”

“Actually, they remind me of you, a little.”  Dorian snorts at this, and Bull smiles at him as he explains, “They can last a long time without water, but they thrive with special attention.  They look delicate, and beautiful, but they’re very hardy; and they prefer the warmth.”  Bull reaches into the arrangement, rubs a petal between his thumb and forefinger, “They feel like velvet, too.”

Dorian makes a noise then, and says, “Oh Maker.  You really are sin incarnate, aren’t you?”

“Yup,” Bull laughs, “it wouldn’t be any fun otherwise.”

Dorian looks back at the flowers and sighs.  “You are a terrible, horrible person, and I hate you.”  He smirks, takes hold of the collar of Bull’s shirt and pulls him toward him, planting a quick, chaste kiss on the corner of Bull’s mouth.  “Thank you,” he mutters, and Bull smiles and says, “No problem. I’m sure you can thank me more profusely later.”

Anders’ voice  sails through from the studio, “Hey, lovebirds!  Get a room or get in here - we got a schedule to work to, Dorian!”

“Alright! Alright,” Dorian yells back, sounding annoyed.  He grimaces to Bull and rolls his eyes.  He turns and walks through the partition into the studio and Bull follows.

 

“I did something to my back the other day," Dorian complains, “it's all scrunched-feeling.  Where did you say the lever is?”  This last is directed at Al, who glances over from the koi carp he is presently filling with shades of dusky orange and dark pinks, and says, “There, on the base.  Flip it up.”  Dorian does so, and the chair lowers.  “Thank you!” Dorian sings over his shoulder, and then fiddles with the height on his rolling stool.  “How’d you hurt your back?”  Bull asks, and Dorian shrugs as he pulls on his gloves.  “It’s a professional hazard, all that leaning over…”

“...a hazard that you should know how to avoid by now.  You only got one back,”  Anders chimes in.  Dorian huffs and says, “Yes, mother.”

Anders makes a noise of disapproval and mutters, “Bet you don’t listen to your real mother either.”  He shakes his head and then bends his head over the runes he is working down the calf of an elf with chestnut hair, who is flicking tiny sparks from her fingers as she clicks them in time with the music in her headphones.  Dorian looks back at Bull and lets out a huff of breath, then peers closely at the healing on the wings.  After a few moments, he nods, revolves his right hand on his wrist and says, “Okay.  Third time’s the charm.  Ready?”

“Ready,” Bull confirms, and wiggles into the chair a little more deeply.  As Dorian turns to flip the switch on his machine, Bull takes a last, brief look at the unfinished tattoo, and then away again.

 

++

 

“Maker’s Breath, Dorian. That’s something else.”  Al stands over Bull, the expression on his face astonished.  Anders takes his hand from Bull’s chest and sighs.  Then he stands up from where he is sitting on the opposite side to Dorian and stifles a yawn with the back of his hand.  “I’m pooped,” he announces, “Too much healing, not enough lyrium.  You’re pretty much done here though, right?”  Dorian nods quickly, and Anders stretches, yawns again, then smiles at Bull.  He shuffles through to the back room, out of Bull’s line of sight.  Bull feels a little like a particularly interesting lab specimen, which is only exacerbated by Fenris wandering over to stand next to Al.  The look on his face as he stares at Dorian’s work is one of guarded admiration.  Bull is trying desperately not to look at the work until it is truly finished, but it is getting harder by the moment. Finally, finally, Dorian sits up, exhales sharply, still looking at Bull’s chest.  He cocks his head, then looks at Bull, his expression serious.  “Finished,” he says simply, “finally finished.”  Fenris shakes his head, raises an eyebrow and smiles; Al sighs and whispers, “Wow,” clapping Dorian on the shoulder.  “Well done,” he murmurs, and Dorian smiles slightly.  “What are you waiting for?”  he asks Bull, and Bull smiles stiffly and says, “An invitation.”

“Consider yourself invited, then,” Dorian smirks and Bull takes a deep breath and swings his legs over the side of the chair.  Dorian rises also, standing behind Bull as he takes the first look at the completed tattoo.  Dorian seems to almost vibrate with anticipation, but it’s all, more, than Bull could have hoped for - the way the dragon’s throat seems to almost pulse with the brilliant cobalt and sky of the lightning beneath its skin, the way that the black and grey blurs so perfectly into the grey of Bull’s skin, the orange markings standing in stark contrast.  The expression on the dragon’s face seems to Bull to be both fierce and resigned as to the inevitability of it’s death.  His hand hovers over the design, almost feeling like he could reassure himself of the reality of the existence of a thing of such beauty if only he could touch it.  Dorian clears his throat, and Bull’s fingers curl under and he drops his hand.  As much as he is unwilling to take his his eyes off the dragon, he knows this silence must be something torturous to Dorian, so he turns around.  Dorian seems his usual self, but there is something in the set of his mouth and the way the pulse in his neck is so obvious that tells Bull he is horribly nervous.  He takes a step toward Dorian, and drops his guard, letting his fists clench and unclench, feeling the tension collect in his shoulders and his eye fill with tears.  “Kadan,” he says, his voice breaking on the word, and then he is unable to say more.  Dorian steps forward, hands going around Bull’s neck, pressing his hips close to Bull while keeping his torso clear of the new, uncovered tattoo.  He smiles gently up into Bull’s face and then the smile widens as he tells Bull, “I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short, gentle one for you on Monday. The song the busker is singing is ['Throw Your Arms Around Me'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H2Dl4bfySM), by Hunters and Collectors, from the 1986 album 'Human Frailty'. 
> 
> **AND ALSO A WARNING:** The end is nigh, and it is full of angst. So if you like your mascara on your eyelashes, and not on your cheeks, I'd say probably say a fond farewell to this fic at this point. That is assuming that you wear mascara, but hopefully you get what I mean.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Reminder: Chapter 11 can function as an ending.** This chapter is about an offer Bull gets from the Chargers and Dorian having to (and wanting to) go home to Tevinter. There is an argument between Dorian and Bull: while there are no archive warnings which apply to this chapter, there is a little bit of violence. ADDITIONAL TAGS: separation, travel, arguing, declarations of love, true love, to be continued.

Kingsway makes way to Harvestmere, and the rain begins in earnest, day after day when it rains, then sleets, then rains again. The trees bare their empty arms to the grey sky, and the short days more often find the two of them together.  The long, blank nights when the stars are lost under the low cloud which wreaths the hills are paradise to Bull; stretches of time given up gladly in the heat of the bed, in books, in the piquant discoveries he makes about Dorian.  Brilliant in every sense of the word, this man seems to shine to Bull, a bright light which becomes his sun; glorying in the warmth of his presence, uncertain and cold when he is not there.  He is listening to Dorian read aloud from an anthology of modern Rivani poetry as the rain beats on the windows, biting the inside of his cheek to stifle his laughter at the florid way Dorian is enunciating the words, knowing he is deliberately trying to get him to laugh so that he can accuse him of being an uncultured boor, when his phone rings.  Dorian immediately stops, but when Bull doesn’t move, he says, “Aren’t you going to get that?”

 

Bull sighs, worms his legs out from under Dorian’s.  He shuffles across to the kitchen bench, looks at the phone, and grins when he sees the name.  He thumbs the green accept call icon and says, “Krem de la Creme!”

“Chief!”  Krem sounds elated, but there is an edge of exhaustion to his voice as well, “We got it! It’s signed and sealed!”

“Knew you would, kid.  So, is it good?”

“Real good, Chief.  That lawyer really worked her ass off for us, it’s better than the contract they offered first off.  Well worth it.  And…” Krem pauses, his tone changing slightly, becoming almost cautious, “I got something I wanted to ask you.”

“Yeah?” Bull keeps his voice interested but neutral, “Better get it out then.”

“We were wondering… do you… do you wanna sign up again?  I mean, you were the one that started this outfit, and we got mad distribution now.” He pauses, his voice gaining strength, the persuasive strength which had made him such a good lieutenant, “No more mercenary shit, Chief.  Just pissing about on film and getting paid to do it.  Paid handsomely, I might add.  I’m spending all my time in negotiations, and just thinking ‘It should be the Chief doing this, he’s the one with the head for it’.  Doesn’t have to be on camera; whatever role you want, it’s yours.  What do you say?  Network needs an answer by the end of the month.”

 

Bull is quiet.  He wanders slowly into the hallway, away from Dorian, then into the bedroom where he closes the door softly.  “Where’d you guys be based?” he wonders aloud, and Krem answers promptly, “Wycome primarily, but filming all over.  It’s big, Chief, real big.  There’s even negotiation with the Warped Tour happening tomorrow, or maybe the next day… I forget.”  He sighs, sounding more tired than Bull has heard him in a long time.  It would be great to work with the Chargers again, properly work with them, but the name Wycome sends his heartbeat skudding into his ears, deafening him.  Krem waits for a moment, then asks, “Chief?  You still there?”

“Yeah,” Bull says, coming to his senses finally, “Yeah, I’m here.  Hey, that all sounds great, Krem.  You’re doing great.  You wanna send me through a contract?”

“That means you’ll take it?  For real?”  

“It means I’ll look at the contract, Cremisius.”  Krem laughs, then Bull hears yelling in the background, and Krem says, “Aw fuck, they’ve opened the casks.  With axes.  I gotta go, Chief.  Nice talkin’ to you - and think about it, seriously, okay?”

“Yeah, Krem.  Bye.”

 

Bull taps the red end call icon, but stands in the bedroom for a few minutes, the phone held loosely in his hand.  He knows this is a one-time offer; he knows his particular skill set is unusual, and worthwhile, but he also knows that not many places will hire a Qunari full stop, let alone one with such a strange history as his.  He sniffs, pockets the phone and opens the door again, wanders back through to the living room.  Dorian looks at him from the sofa, book still open on his lap.  He takes one look at Bull and asks, “Bad news?”

“Actually, no. Good news, I guess.”  And with that, he proceeds to explain Krem’s offer to Dorian.  He’s barely finished when Dorian interrupts him, saying, “Take it.”

“Really?  What about..?”

“What about what?  You’re not going to get a better offer; you get to work with people you like and respect; you get to help them and do something interesting, and, cherry on the top, you get paid for it.  Do you even need to see the contract?  Take it.”

Bull frowns, “What about us, Dorian?  I’d be gone more often than not - they’re going to be based up in the Marches, but there’s a lot of road work, a lot of on location organisational shit.”  He shakes his head, “Nah, it’s not going to work.”

 

Dorian is silent.  Then he says, very quietly, not looking at Bull, “My contract finishes in a month.  My visa doesn’t extend beyond that.”  He leaves the rest unsaid, and Bull’s stomach drops.  “You’re going back.  You were going back no matter what, weren’t you.”  It’s not a question and they both know it, but Dorian shakes his head, “It’s not like that.  I… if Al sponsored me to stay longer, and he would, then I could extend it…”

“If and would and could,” Bull says, almost marvelling, and shakes his own head, “You haven’t asked.  You _planned_ to go back.”

“Of course I did!  It’s my home, Bull.”  Dorian looks stunned for a moment, then continues, “If I truly believed my homeland was beyond all hope, I wouldn’t miss it so much.  I know Tevinter won’t change overnight.  But unless… unless I try to change it, I’ll never know, I’ll always be asking myself if I could have made things better, fairer there.”  Dorian glares at Bull, and Bull sees he is becoming annoyed, “And I’m not likely to change anything if I’m shacked up here in the arse-crack of Thedas, am I?”  He is suddenly on his feet, and begins to pace the room, rubbing at the snake on his arm almost compulsively.  His eyes blaze at Bull as he says, “Don’t give me your righteous indignation.  I never asked for this... this whatever this is…”

Bull snorts, and growls, “That’s a lie.  We both know what this is.” He shakes his head slowly, and an expression of disgust contorts his features for a moment before he says, “Quit being so afraid, Dorian…”

“I am not afraid!  Not of you, certainly not of my feelings! I cannot, I will not have you giving up your future, an opportunity of this kind for… for…” He finally stops pacing, and looks at Bull again, his eyes filmed with tears.  He clenches his fists, and Bull sees that he is shaking with tension.  He finally says to Bull, in a strangled voice, “Don’t not do it because of me.”

 

Bull’s throat feels constricted, his stomach in knots. Eventually, he asks Dorian, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”  Dorian just stares at him for a moment, then glances down.  “There was never a good time,” he says, somewhat defiantly, seeming to know that his reason is weak.  He raises his eyes to Bull.  The tears are still shining on the lashes, and he raises a hand, swiping at them impatiently.  He takes a deep breath in and continues, “Truly, I meant to.  Things were just… they were going so well, and… I suppose that I thought as long as I didn’t think about it, then maybe it would never happen.  Foolish,” he sighs, “but I have been living in a fool's paradise for the last six months or so, so I suppose it can’t be helped.”  The joke falls flat; Bull cannot even pretend to smile for Dorian’s benefit.  He feels strangely betrayed, thinking that he never knew how passionate Dorian was about Tevinter, and he wonders where this sudden desire to run home has come from.  But as soon as he realises what he’s thinking, he feels stupid - though Dorian has hardly spoken of his home, he is clearly proud of it.  Bull looks again at the snake, the words on Dorian’s knuckles, almost as if he is seeing them for the first time.  The more he thinks about it, the angrier he feels, but at himself, not at Dorian.  Although Dorian had perhaps lied by omission, he and Bull never talked about a future; it was a conversation they’d both avoided.  “Well then, kadan,” he says, shifting himself to rise from the sofa, “I guess we just gotta enjoy whatever time is left to us.”  He grins in that way he knows Dorian has difficulty resisting, and bends, hooking his right arm under Dorian’s knees, supporting his back with his left.  But Dorian steps away, puts his hand on Bull’s shoulder and pushes, looking at Bull in confusion, and asks, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

 

“Sweeping you off your feet.  Makes it easier to carry you to the bedroom,” Bull answers blithely, and Dorian sneers, his mouth open.  He shakes his head angrily and asks, “Are you kidding me?  You’ve always talked a big game about me avoiding my emotional baggage.  What about yours?  You can’t feel good about this.”  He looks almost affronted, and says, “You better not pretend to.”

“Yeah.  Okay.  You wanna know how I feel about it?”  With that, Bull is back on the brink of anger; desperately, some part of his mind tries to reign it in, but it breaks free, and he grabs Dorian’s wrist, tightening his grip until he feels the narrow bones almost seem to grind together.  Dorian’s jaw clenches hard, but he makes no sound as Bull tells him, “I feel like I should have known it was gonna end like this.  Like I should never have gotten involved.  Everything I do, every moment of my life since I met you, has been lived with you in mind.”  He pauses, almost panting in his fury, and growls, “Don’t think I was expecting a medal, or true love, or any of that shit.  But you never let me in, Dorian.  I was always breaking walls with you.”

 

Dorian’s lips curl into a snarl, and he makes a quick gesture, a push, with his free hand.  Bull suddenly finds himself thrown violently against the opposite wall, and pinioned against it, unable to move.  Dorian’s hand is aglow with a sick, yellow-green light as he stands in front of Bull, his whole body trembling.  Unconsciously, he tucks the wrist Bull has injured into his armpit.  Bull can hardly breathe, cannot even move his head as Dorian shouts, “I love you, you fucking imbecile!  You knew what you were getting into, you know me better than I know myself!  How can you say that I never let you in, when that’s all I’ve ever done?”  And with that, the force is gone, and Bull slumps to the floor.  He drags in a deep, whooping breath, raises a hand to his chest as Dorian stands over him, tears now streaming down, tracking black down his face.  Then, his knees give out slowly, and he is on the floor in front of Bull, his head cradled in his hands as he sobs, “I love you, I love you,” over and over in a straining, cracked voice.  Bull breathes out, slowly, looking at Dorian for a moment longer before he feels like his limbs are sufficiently under control.  Then he crawls to Dorian, pulls him gently up and into his arms as he whispers, “Kadan, shhh, kadan, I’m here, I’m sorry, I’m here, I’m here, I love you, I love you too.”

 

++

 

He wakes in the dark, unsure immediately as to why.  Then the feel of the damp on his pillow filters up through his still-sleeping mind, and Bull touches his face, realises that he’s been crying in his sleep.  His stomach sinks, remembering that today marks the beginning of their final day together, and he breathes out as quietly as he can, pulling Dorian’s sleeping form closer to him in the dark, breathing in, breathing out, trying desperately not to wake him as he does.  He breathes the scent of Dorian’s hair, and shifts as close as he dares against Dorian, who murmurs and rubs his face against Bull.  Dorian sighs suddenly and pushes up with one hand against the dragon on Bull’s chest, gazing blearily into Bull’s face.  He is still mostly asleep as he asks, “Are you alright?  Bad dream?”

 

Bull tries to speak, but only a hitching noise comes out.  So instead, he pulls Dorian on top of him, gathering him into his arms, burying his face in the crook of Dorian’s neck.  The muscles in his thighs quiver with the tension of trying to hold back, and his jaw twitches as he holds Dorian against him as tight as he dares, trying to keep his breathing regular.  It works, until Dorian whispers, “Amatus...?”  And Bull pitches over the edge of his sadness, begins to sob quietly into Dorian’s neck, finally letting go, finally trusting that Dorian will understand.  And he does, of course he does, just puts his arms around Bull there in the dark, and doesn’t say anything, not that it will be alright, or that it doesn’t matter.  They both know that it won’t be, and that it does.

 

++

 

“Fasta vass, I knew I’d forget something!” Dorian pats his jacket pockets and pulls his bag open, beginning to panic.  Bull grins, plucks the passport out of Dorian’s back pocket and says, “Looking for this?”

“No, my other passport, nitwit,” Dorian says, and snatches it with a relieved look from Bull’s hand.  Bull laughs as Dorian rolls his eyes, then Dorian looks at Bull and his smile fades as he says, “I hate this part.”

“Yeah.  Me too.  Which gate you at?”

“Uh…” Dorian checks his ticket, then tells Bull, “Fifteen?”  He looks around for a sign to tell him where to go, and Bull chuckles, though he feels less like laughing than he ever has before.  “Say it with some confidence, Dorian.  Fifteen!”  Dorian snorts, and continues looking around at the small provincial airport.  Redcliffe isn’t large enough to have an international terminal, so Dorian and Bull will both fly to Denerim before they reach their final destinations; Dorian to Minrathous via Val Royaux, Bull to Wycome direct.  Bull’s flight is two days hence, and he dreads the thought of the days to follow, days in the same old places without Dorian.  Still, he has put on his bravest face, though he feels his sadness pulling at the camouflage with every passing second.  

 

They wander the airport, spending their final moments together in that awful twilight which seems to exist in all points of terminus, feeling like they are underwater, each not knowing what to say to the other.  Eventually, Bull can stand it no longer, and catches Dorian’s hand, squeezing it gently, and Dorian squeezes back.  After they have walked the concourse twice, they sit in the horrid dark red plastic chairs opposite Dorian’s gate to await the boarding call.  When it finally comes, Dorian’s hand stiffens in Bull’s, and he says, “I guess this is it then.”

“Yeah,” Bull says.  His throat is dry, and he looks at Dorian, who says, “There’s still five minutes.”  Bull can only nod, and Dorian continues, “You know, you’re only in the Marches, it’s not that far, maybe…”

“Don’t say it, Dorian.  Maybe nothing.  This is it.”

Dorian’s lip trembles slightly, and then he lifts his chin up and sighs.  There is silence for a moment.  Then Bull says quietly, on one breath, just letting the words run out of him to fill this awful space in the air between them, “Kadan, take care of yourself.  Remember me, if you can, but you know…” he grimaces, rubs the dragon on his chest through his clothes, always under his skin now, just like Dorian.  He tries to smile at Dorian, but has to look away quickly, and says in a whisper, “I love you.”

“Remember you?”  Dorian snorts and shakes his head, “How could I forget?” And with that, he pulls at the neck of his shirt, pulling it down to reveal a tattoo of a dragon’s tooth, just below his clavicle, above the hilt of Hessarian’s sword.  Bull gapes and asks, “How did you know?”  Dorian just chuckles, releases his shirt as he says, “Ever heard of the Internet?  It’s quite a big deal these days.”  He pauses, listens to the announcement, and swallows.  “Amatus, I have to go.  But trust me - I could never forget.”  And with that, he rises, pulls his hand from Bull’s and shoulders his bag.  He walks away from where Bull sits, then descends the escalator toward his gate, not looking back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I can't even. I'm so happy that so many of you have enjoyed this fic, which started as a little sketch on Merm-aight's tumblr, and turned into this giant monster-beast-monster. FYI, there is a little more to come, which will be on tumblr, but I'll post a link as a new chapter here. Honestly, I can't actually thank Merm enough, she's been with me the whole way on this whole project, beta-ing, suggesting, enthusing (love ya, babe). Finally, thank you all so much for your wonderful comments, for engaging with my rambling replies to those comments, and for just being the shining stars that you all are. xo, l_a


	13. [a few months later]

[ _the happy ending_ ](http://merm-aight.tumblr.com/post/121674101947/i-dont-handle-angst-very-well-so-i-forced)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything you read in the link is MermAight's work - she wrote the story, though I fully endorse it. Heehee, and I did help in my tiny way with the lettering. Enjoy!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [As Above, So Below](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4126801) by [little_abyss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_abyss/pseuds/little_abyss)




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